History
The school was officially named after Orme Campbell, the mother of the man who donated the land on which the original school was built, with the stipulation that the name of the school could never be changed. Orme Campbell High School opened in 1952 with the merger of Smyrna High School and Fitzhugh Lee High School. It opened with a total of 425 students in grades 8-11.
In 1989, Orme Campbell High School and F.T. Wills High School merged to form a new Smyrna High School. Prior to the merger, Campbell students were known as the Green and White "Panthers" and Wills students were known as the Red and Black "Tigers". The students united in selecting new colors, royal blue and silver, and a new mascot, the "Spartans".
In 1990, the courts overruled the name change of the school (due to stipulations in the original deed restrictions on the property that whatever school was sited there must be named for the Campbell family), and the name Campbell High School was reinstated. Since the ruling pertained only to the school name, it was decided the new colors and the new mascot would be left unchanged. In 1997, the school was relocated to the site of the original Wills High School because of rapid growth, but retained the Campbell name in order to maintain a consistent identity.
Because of the rich history of the school, it is common to walk around the school and find old murals and displays from the past in current use, as well as finding the original brick walls of the old schools from which the facility is comprised.
Read more about this topic: Campbell High School (Smyrna, Georgia)
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