Greater Latrobe High School's art

I was lucky enough to go to a high school that not only was large, beautiful, and full of amazing people, but we had wonderful programs in the arts as well as the stereotypical athletics. Greater Latrobe High School had art classes in drawing and painting, ceramics, drawing the human figure, independent study art, art history, fabric design, and probably a few more that I've forgotten.  I filled my schedule with as many of these as possible, with my senior year being especially art-centered. 

Latrobe also boasts the largest student purchased art collection in the country.  Every year since about 1933, students vote on paintings and the student government purchases a few.  Our school's halls are filled with art; every few feet there's a drawing or painting on the wall.  They all have individual museum lights on them and they're alarmed.  More than once I've bumped a few, but I never set them off.  My high school really does look like a museum.  It has soft lighting and glossy floors, a central rotunda surrounded by columns with a floor mosaic in the center, and glass cases. 

The paintings had special signifigance for me, and not just because I'm an art lover.  Being new to the school at the start of high school, I learned my way around by the paintings; the colorful jesters hanging on the wall marked where my homeroom was.  Paintings were meeting places, markers, and familiar friends we all passed every single day for three years.  They were a part of my high school experience, just like the prom and writing for the magazine.