The school was constructed in late spring and summer of 1892 at a cost of $18, 281. According to the Bannock County Historical Society, the school was originally called West Side School, holding all grades in the same school. Pocatello High School was the most impressive building in the area during the early 1900s and on many occasions the school served as a town square where concerts and athletic contests were held. Two presidents of the United States spoke on the grounds of Pocatello High School, President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 and William Howard Taft in 1908. In 1914, a fire started in the boiler room and the high school burnt completely to the ground. The school was rebuilt in exactly the same location. In 1939, the old school was remodeled and additions were made including a new gymnasium currently known as "the pit". In 1996 major renovations were added to the school which took three years to complete. These renovations included new floors, lights, sidewalks, heating system, and windows. A new gymnasium known as "the palace" was built between 2004 and 2006. Architect Frank H. Paradice, Jr., who moved to Pocotello around 1915, reportedly designed the high school, presumably the new construction one replacing the one destroyed by fire in 1914. In September 2016, Monsanto awarded a grant of $15,000 for the development of a hydroponic greenhouse for the roof of the Museum of Clean to teach students about green energy and how plants grow. Wind turbines and solar panels will generate power, such as to provide electricity for lights during the nighttime. It is part of a project involving the partnership of the high school with the museum. The installation is targeted for completion in the fall of 2017.
Achievements
In 1989, Pocatello High School received the Presidential Excellence award, one of only 165 awards given in the nation.
Athletics
Pocatello competes in athletics in IHSAAClass 4A in the Great Basin Conference with Century and Preston. PHS traditionally competed with the largest schools in the state in Class 5A ; a drop in enrollment caused a change to Class 4A.
* Four A-1 state titles in football were won in six-season span.
The 2012 baseball team won the state 4A championship, its first.
Rivalries
Pocatello High School has intra-city rivalries with Highland and Century. The annual football game between Pocatello and Highland is known as the "Black and Blue Bowl." A tradition of rivalry between the schools is to paint the large rock outside of the other schools.
State titles
Boys
Cross Country : fall 1980; 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 '
Wrestling : 1968, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1990, 1991, 1992 '
Baseball : 2012 '
Track : 1958; 2009
Golf : 1957, 1962, 1990, 2007, 2008 '
Football : fall 1989, 1990, 1992, 1994: 2006 '
* '
Girls
Cross Country : fall 1995, 1996 '
Volleyball : fall 1990 '
Track : 1975, 1982, 1994, 1995, 1996 ''
Dance: All-State Champions 2012
Controversy
In October, 2013, a former girls' basketball coach, Laraine Cook was fired over a Facebook photo where her fiance, Tom Harrison, a football coach at Pocatello High School, holds her breast. Cook told local Pocatello ABC affiliate that she was fired and not Harrison because she was the one who posted the photo. Until the 1970s, the Pocatello High School mascot was a Native American caricature named Osky Ow Wow, "a little Mohawk-looking guy with buck teeth, dark skin, big round eyes and a Mohawk haircut." The school's dance team, the Indianettes, continue to perform a redface routine in which students dress up in stereotypical Native American outfits and perform a mock "Indian" dance.
