Students all know the feeling of walking into the building every morning bright and early, but 20, 30 or maybe even 50 years ago, it was nothing like it is now. From smoking courts and fist fighting, it was a whole other world.

“The whole west wing has been added since I was in school. We had nothing past Webster’s room,” social studies teacher Rick Hess said.

Students who attended AHS many years ago had more limitations when it came to options for sports. 

“My sophomore year was the first year we had Augusta baseball,” Hess said, “I actually pitched the very first Augusta baseball game.”

On the opposite side of the spectrum, not every old event was necessarily a positive one.

“All of our schools are a lot safer now. Back then, bullying was beating the crap out of you between passing periods, sticking other kids’ heads in the toilets before class,” Hess said.

 “There was a ton of fighting in this school; fist fights on a regular basis, drugs were rampant in this school, and I’m not talking about Marijuana.”

Using technology in a school environment is very normalized now, many school experiences involving learning used to be much different due to the lack of technology. 

“We had typewriters: you make a mistake on a paper you have to do the whole thing over,” health and physical education teacher Cynthia Phillips said.