Klamath County Museum’s Photo of the Week for Jan. 31, 2021, shows high school freshmen arriving for the first day of classes in the brand new Mazama School on Jan. 17, 1966. Girls were still wearing skirts to school at the time, while close-cropped hair was in style for boys.
Mazama came about as a result of serious overcrowding at Klamath Union High School. KUHS was so crowded, in fact, that the student body attended classes in two shifts. Upper classmen started class at 7 a.m., while freshmen and sophomores attended classes in the afternoon.
The overcrowding at KU was relieved with the opening of Mazama on Summers Lane. Serving only freshmen from throughout the city when it opened, it was initially known as Mazama Secondary School. According to a Herald and News report, about 550 freshmen poured into Mazama when the school opened in 1966.
Both KU and Mazama were part of the Klamath Union High School district. Elementary and junior high grades in Klamath Falls were operated separately by the Klamath Falls City Schools district.
Numerous changes came to Mazama over the years. Sophomores began going to Mazama in 1973, and the school’s name was changed to Mazama Mid High. Mazama became a regular high school, serving grades 9-12, in 1979.
Yet another change came in 1997, when the City Schools district and the Klamath Union High School district were merged.
Mazama, finally, was transferred from the City Schools district to the Klamath County School District in 2008 as part of a complicated realignment of school boundaries.
We hope we got this story straight. Our thanks to Museum volunteer Mary Nobel for assembling the historical background. Comments and corrections welcome!
– Klamath County Museum
I am not certain of your timeline. We moved to Klamath Falls in the summer of 1966 and there was no Mazama School.
This is from the Klamath County Museum. They are welcoming suggestions on this. You are welcome to contact them.
I started my freshman year at KU in 1965 and then finished my Freshman year at Mazama in 1966.
Same for me. KU in 65 and Mazama in 66.
The school was smaller originally.
Dad started the last year as a freshman only school and my mom the last year as a mid high, both in the ‘70’s. The history classrooms (where my dad taught), were added later but not sure when. The science labs were originally courtyards and later enclosed to make science labs. The gym caved in, in 1997 as a result of snow and ice building up so much. My mom (English) was taking kids so she could work in her classroom so my dad could watch the uninterrupted Super Bowl. We were stopped by police and fire as we were at the front entrance to tell us what happened and we had to turn around. There’s others but those are the biggest. I a was s also told that the county had the land but not money to build, and the city schools had the money (hence being a city school in county boundary lines).
I started at Mazama in 1967 as part of the class to complete the first full school year there. KUHS class of 1970. It has been a while, but I believe the class ahead of us was moved there from KUHS part way through their freshman year.