Belvidere High School (Illinois)

Belvidere High School is located in at 1500 East Avenue, Belvidere, Illinois in Boone County.

Belvidere High School
Address
1500 East Avenue Belvidere , Illinois 61008 United States
Coordinates	42.2438°N 88.8306°W / 42.2438; -88.8306
Information
School type	Public Secondary
School district	Belvidere Community Unit School District 100
Superintendent	Daniel Woestman 2016[1] =
Principal	Billy Lewis
Teaching staff	85.00 (FTE)[2]
Grades	9–12
Gender	Coed
Enrollment	1,161 (2023-2024)[2]
Average class size	21.4[3]
Student to teacher ratio	13.66[2]
Campus type	Urban
Color(s)	Purple   Gold[4]
Slogan	It's the Year of the BUCS!
Song	Notre Dame Victory March
Athletics conference	Northern Illinois Conference (NIC-10)[5]
Mascot	Buccaneer
Team name	Bucs[4]
Newspaper	The Buccaneer'[6]
Yearbook	Belvi
Website	Official School Website

History

Further information: Old Belvidere High School (Belvidere, Illinois)

1967 tornado

Main article: 1967 Belvidere tornado

On the afternoon of April 21, 1967, an F4 tornado struck the school, killing 13 students and staff, tossing buses as students were being dismissed. The tornado was part of the 1967 Oak Lawn tornado outbreak. It was the sixth worse loss of life at an American school as a result of tornadoes, and the worst since 1955.^[7][8]

To mark the 50th anniversary of the tragedy, a memorial to the lives lost in the tornado was erected in front of Belvidere High School in 2017.^[9]

Athletics

Belvidere competes in the Northern Illinois Conference (NIC-10), and is a member of the Illinois High School Association (IHSA). Teams are stylized as the Bucs (a shortening of Buccaneers).

BHS Sports: Football, Poms, Cheerleading, Basketball, Dance, Baseball, Tennis, Bowling, Track & Field, Soccer, Softball, Golf, Volleyball, Swimming, and Cross Country.

The school won back–to–back state championships in football in the autumns of 1993 and 1994.^[10]

Belvidere High School's current biggest rival is Belvidere North High School. Before that school was created, however, Rockford Boylan Central Catholic High School was their biggest sports rival.

The Bucs branding is also carried over to Belvidere South Middle School.

Notable alumni

• Jeanne Gang ’82, award-winning architect, founder of Studio Gang Architects, and designer of the world's two tallest skyscrapers designed by a woman, Aqua and the St. Regis Chicago^{[11][12][13][14]}
• William James Hurlbut, artist, playwright, and screenwriter