Or, as I like to call ‘em, the Effing Hearts.
Effingham is a city of 12,250 in southeast central Illinois. It’s halfway between St Louis and Indianapolis. It’s something of a hub – with interstates, railroads & Route 40 (the National Road) all passing through.
It was founded in 1814 and was originally called Broughton. It was then named Effingham after some local surveyor (who I assume had something to do with laying out the town). It's one claim to fame is a terrible hospital fire that killed 74 people in 1949.
The high school has 800 students, and is located just west of the city center. Its website claims its students “produce award winning theatre shows, earn athletic scholarships to major universities, and are awarded over 1 million dollars in academic scholarships annually.”
The 80-year-old building recently underwent a facelift
It has one famous alumnus as far as I call tell. And that’s the wonderfully named Uwe Blab, an NBA star of the 80s and 90s who was known for his red hair (his nickname was the Burning Skyscraper).
Uwe today
Now, about that mascot … It sounds like it comes from a local booster, one Ada Kepley, who promoted the town as the “Heart of America.” The mascot was adopted all the way back in the 1930s. Not sure where the “flaming" came from. They were originally named the Warriors.
Ada was the first female law school grad in the US, I’ll have you know
No comments:
Post a Comment