Piedmont High School

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Piedmont High School is a public high school in Unionville, North Carolina. The mascot of the school is the Panther; as portrayed by Jason R. Belk, and the current principal is Mr. Jonathan Bowers. Former principal Archie Price was principal at Piedmont for almost 20 years. The motto for the school is the acronym PACE, standing for "Piedmont Academics Character Excellence."

View southwesterly from Piedmont HS toward Unionville, NC NASA World Wind

History

Piedmont was founded in 1960 as the second high school in Union County. After the Class of 2005, the school was divided, with half of the classes of 2007, 2008, and 2009 moving to newly created Porter Ridge High School. On June 14, 2010 it will be the 50th graduating class and guest speaker will be country music star, Trace Atkins.

Art

Piedmont was the first school in Union County to have an NAHS (National Art Honor Society). It was founded in 1991 by Mrs. Tracy Price, one of Piedmont's art teachers. The process to get in involves many art projects, which are made for existing members of NAHS. The members in the club sport the very well known "SFK" sweatshirts. Only members and alumni know what it means, but many are working hard to find out. To quote the hoodie, "You think you know but you have no idea." They also started another tradition at Piedmont: VSA, or Very Special Arts. This is a very popular event at Piedmont which is usually the week after spring break. This is the last year that this event will take place at Piedmont High, as Wingate University is taking over the project. In 2010, the event was held at nearby Parkwood High School.

Sports

The Panthers are the 1984 2A State Baseball champions. Piedmont baseball team has also put many baseball players in the major leagues Andy Tomberlin, Rob Lyerly, and Dallas Tarlton. They have also had state champions in swimming, wrestling, and track and field. Also, the football team had a 31 game regular season winning streak from 2001-2003 under Coach Rusty Jester, winning the district title during that run. The woman's softball and men's baseball teams are currently two of the top teams in 3A.

Currently the teams compete in the Rocky River Conference, which is 2A. This downgrade was made the school year of 2009-2010. They had been competing in the South Piedmont Conference which is 3A

Currently, the biggest rival for Piedmont is Porter Ridge. Piedmont is currently 3–2 against them all time in football. Historically, though, Piedmont's biggest rival in high school football is Forest Hills High School. Frank Ambrose was named the new varsity football coach for the 2008-2009 year after the team only won 2 games over the last few years. Ambrose had just one win in 2008 against rival Porter Ridge during his first year at Piedmont. During his second year as head coach, he led the Panthers to a 7-4 record and made the NC State playoffs. Ambrose has signed 2 Division I College football players during the summer of 2010 and finished with an 11-2 record, losing in the second round of the state playoffs.

The Piedmont Varsity cheerleaders have become highly competitive and won a 5th place title at State out of 22 squads. They also won a first place title at Methodist.

Band

The Piedmont Band (Marching Panthers) has become well-known, beginning in 2004, when they won their first Grand Champion award at the East Rowan Food Lion Classic. They won a second Grand Champion award in 2005. They have become even more prestigious in the 2007-2008 school year when they won two Grand Champions in one day at two different contests. Also in 2007, they won Grand Champion at the Porter Ridge Contest, totaling three Grand Champions in one marching season. In 2009, the Marching Panthers attended their first Bands of America competition. They competed at the Georgia Superdome and intend to continue competing there annually.

Coordinates: 35°05′43″N 80°29′28″W / 35.0951471°N 80.4911771°W / 35.0951471; -80.4911771