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Why First Colonial?
More recent graduates may wonder about the name. This is a longer story than you might think, but I'll keep it brief. In 1965, those of us attending Virginia Beach High School were told that we would be attending a new school next year. Not a problem, we thought, the new school would be the new Virginia Beach High School while our dear VBHS would become Virginia Beach Junior High School. Seemed simple enough to us, but there were other considerations.
The city of Virginia Beach, at that time was still fairly new as an expanded "city", having merged with Princess Anne County in 1963. With the huge geographic territory involved and other high schools in the city, I suppose it was problematic for one school to be named for the city. It was announced that the new school would have a new name: Owens High School. This name was selected by the school board as an honor to a long-time board employee. While we meant no disrespect to Mr. Owens, the hue and cry was tremendous! Our school was to be named Virginia Beach High....and anything other than that was simply unacceptable! So, the protest was mounted.
Petitions were circulated and other names were proposed, including "Oceana High". Ultimately, we were provided with the opportunity to vote on a school name. While that sounded great in principal, we didn't count on the fact that (obviously) the city school board would draw up the ballot. Guess what? Virginia Beach High School was not one of the choices on the ballot. We were allowed to vote on either "Owens" or simply the name of the road on which the new school was located: First Colonial. Guess which choice won?
Again, for the more recent graduates, you might say: "The school is NOT on First Colonial Road...its at 1272 Mill Dam Road". Right you are. It is NOW. And, no, the school didn't move, the road did. In the continuing effort to keep up with growth in the area, the city built a new thoroughfare to connect Laskin Road with Great Neck Road. When this was completed, the new road was named First Colonial Road, while the existing First Colonial Road was renamed Mill Dam Road. This may make more sense if you look at the map below.
In any event, disagreements about the name aside, once we started classes at our new school, we never looked back. First Colonial was OURS...and we became Patriots, proud of the name and our school.
Map compliments of Yahoo! Maps