November 2, 2007

Until 1971, black students at Newport (Jackson County) attended public school at a segregated campus, originally known as the Newport Colored School, located on Arrington Avenue. In 1954, the same year as the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision, the name was changed to W. F. Branch High School. The name change was in honor of William Franklin Branch, who had retired in 1948 after serving as the school’s principal for twenty-three years.