Lake Marion High School & Technology Center

Lake Marion High School & Technology Center (LMHS) is a four-year public high school in Santee, South Carolina. It is the only high school in Orangeburg Consolidated School District Number 3. It serves as the opening for two middle schools, Elloree Elementary-Middle School and Holly Hill Roberts Middle School.

LMHS has many learning facilities as well as facilities for community usage. Lake Marion has two gymnasiums, a media center, technology center, two football fields, cafeteria, hallway designated for fine arts (such as band, drama, chorus, & art) two track fields, a baseball field and other amenities. It is the second largest high school in Orangeburg County, behind Orangeburg Wilkinson High.

History

On May 9, 2000, the Orangeburg County Consolidated School District Three Board of Trustees approved a referendum to build a new high school, and the district voters passed the referendum on September 9, 2000. After two years of preparation, the official groundbreaking ceremony was held on November 12, 2002, and actual construction began on November 21 and continued for the next two and a half years.

Lake Marion High School and Technology Center was created for the 2004-2005 school year by consolidating Elloree High School and Holly Hill-Roberts High School. Since the building was not completed until the summer of 2005, Lake Marion High School and Technology Center’s first year was actually split between two locations: a Holly Hill campus and an Elloree campus. However, the Class of 2005, the school’s first graduation class, held their commencement exercises at the football field on the new campus. The building was formally dedicated at a ribbon cutting ceremony held on July 31, 2005.

Lake Marion High School and Technology Center currently has an enrollment of 884 students and 141 faculty and staff.

Academics

In addition to typical academic courses, it also offers Army Junior ROTC. Lake Marion High School also offers honors and advanced placement programs as well as college courses taken through Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College at Lake Marion in which students can earn college as well as high school credit. Since 2013, it has been an International Baccalaureate school.[1]

In the 2010-2011 school year Lake Marion High school was the only High School in the Orangeburg area to exceed the state average for scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Additionally, Lake Marion High School was one of only two schools in the area with students who were successful in obtaining credit through the AP program "Locally, Edisto High in Orangeburg Consolidated School District Four and Lake Marion High School & Technology Center in Orangeburg Consolidated School District Three were the only schools with students to qualify for AP credit. Twenty-six percent of Edisto's students and 36 percent of Lake Marion's students scored the 3-5 points considered passing on the AP exams."

In the fall of 2010 the Orangeburg Consolidated District 3 received "a $6 million Magnet School of America Grant through the U.S. Department of Education for the development of a magnet school." The district used the funds to create an International Baccalaureate program as well as a STEMS academy. "As part of the grant application process to secure the federal funding for the magnet school, the OCSD Three Board of Trustees agreed to the terms of a voluntary desegregation plan."

Athletics

The school's mascot is the "Mighty Gator". Varsity sports offered at LMHS are football, volleyball, cheerleading, girls' basketball, boys' basketball, softball and baseball. Junior varsity sports (9th & 10th) are cheerleading, volleyball, girls' basketball, boys' basketball, and girls' softball. Other sports include cross country, track & field, soccer, and golf. The boys' basketball team became 2AA SC state champions after their defeat to Newberry High School by the score of 91-82 on March 2, 2013. Prior to this, the Gators appeared in the 3AAA SC State Championship where they would lose to Greer High School by a score of 100-97, marking the State Championship's highest-scoring loss and setting a SCHSL Championship record for scoring 39 points in one quarter.

Lake Marion Football played in its first lower State Championship against Dillon High School in 2015.[2]

References
  1. "Lake Marion High School and Technology Center". International Baccalaureate Organization. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  2. Clark, Chris (Nov 26, 2015). "Lake Marion's first Lower State title game is against established Dillon". The Times and Democrat. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
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