School History
A History:
As with all schools, T.H. Bell has its own unique history. We would like to share a little of that information with you.
The user is welcome to scroll down or use the links in the table below to navigate through Bell's selected history.
School Dedication | School Construction & Photos | School Colors/Yearbook |
School Name | School Principals & Head Secretaries | School Website |
School Namesake | School Firsts | Fox Cool School Photos |
School Mascot | School Logo | Bell @ 50 Photos |
A School for 6th Graders
School Dedication
T. H. Bell was Dedicated on November 14, 1963. In the program, is a complete listing of all the teachers and staff that were originally hired in 1963.
Quick Fact: Notice the rectangular hole in the roof in this illustration.
This atrium was in the building until the late 1970's.
Somewhere in the late 1970's to the early 1980's it had acquired a roof, and was a greenhouse with lots of plant life. It was a jungle in there, but It created quite a bit of heat in the office area.
In the early 1990's, it was converted into the modern conference room with air conditioning that today is used heavily for meetings.
School Name:
Deciding on a school name was a major decision. These were some of the suggested names for our school:
Bonneville Jr. High | Edge Hill | Henry A. Dixon |
Hill Crest | Hill Top | Jacqueline |
John Glenn | Miles Goodyear | Mountain View |
South Crest | South Terrace | Terrace Junior High |
T. H. Bell | Van Leeuwen | Wasatch |
School Namesake
Construction:
By the numbers!
87,439 Total Square feet in orginal design
$12.90 - Cost per square foot (Construction of building only)
$13.60 Cost per square foot (Construction and Finish of site)
30 Total teaching stations
Total cost - $1,190,401.94 to build the orginal building
Historical Construction Photographs:
These were shown at the school dedication ceremony.
1962 - Heading for the big yellow bus
T.H. Bell has went through several upgrades since the orginal building was built. The exterior of the building has been added onto 2 different times.
During the 1970's the orignial addition to the school was the addition of the "wood" shop. Look for the vertical piece of metal on the outside of the building on the north side of the art room and the south side of the shops. The exterior brick can still be viewed in the "wood" shop.
During the 1990's the back hall or (vending hall) and the South East classrooms were added. Bathrooms and an ugraded heating plant was added on to the South East side of the school as well.
Bell's Principals:
Mr. Earl B. Cragun: 1962 - 1968 | Mr. Ernest Rauzi: 1968 - 1970 |
Mr. Mark Angus: 1970 - 1984 | Mr. Paul Ogden: 1984 - 1992 |
Mr. Ed Morgan: 1992 - 1993 | Mr. Robert Stillwell: 1993 - 1998 |
Mr. Gary Reed: 1998 - 2003 | Mr. Corey Jenkins: 2003 - 2008 |
Mr. Curtis VandenBosch: 2008 - 2015 | Mr. Lenn Ward: 2015 - 2022 |
Mrs. Heather Hardy: 2022 | Mrs. Nichole Warren-Doman: 2022 - |
Bell's Head Secretaries:
Mrs. Margaret Beyda - 1962 - 1987 | Mrs. Carolyn Phillips 1987 - 2000 |
Mrs. Cydnie Zampedri 2000 - 2018 | Mrs. Jeridee Burnett 2018 - 2021 |
Mrs. Lisa Koopmans 2021 - |
School Firsts
School Firsts:
A list follows below: Principal, Complaint from the public, Sports, & Computers
The first Principal, Mr Earl Cragun, was involved in about every aspect of T.H. Bell Jr. High. He was a very busy man. He was engaged in details concerning the construction of the school to deciding on school logo.
Everyone of us assume that the minuteman was the first logo decided for T. H. Bell; however, the original idea for the logo was a "bell" as the name was T.H. Bell.
Mr. Cragun wrote several letters to various organizations looking for rights to a drawing of a bell to use as an logo. Unfortunately, he couldn't secure the use of one.
This may have been a good thing in the long run, as the logo eventually was the Minutemen!
The First Complaint!
The first complaint to the school came from the neighbor off of the East parking lot. Some boys were throwing rocks at her cow that was in a corral just off the parking lot. One boy even threw a firecracker at it. Below is a picture of the cow in the corral with some of the boys trying to get it's attention.
First and Sports:
Cheerleaders: The first cheerleading tryouts were held on September 24, 1963.
Football: The first football scrimmage was played against Mount Ogden with the score of 12-0 for Mount Ogden.
Basketball: The first basketball team did very well and nearly took the championship. They had a record of 6-2
Wrestling: Bell had a wrestling team in 1964.
First Computers:
The 1st computers at the school were purchased for teacher use in 1985. There were two computers with black and white monitors and very small screens. They had about 128 kilobytes of internal memory with no hard drive. All data was stored on a 3.5 floppy disk which could contain about 1 megabyte of memory (about 500 pages of double spaced text or about 1 photo). The user would input a 3.5 start-up disk to boot the machine, and then put in their own personal floppy to create and store data. At the time, these machines were sold for about $2,500 a piece and were quite and investment! Principal Paul Ogden, our forward thinking administrator, took the risk, and made computer users out of a few of his staff. The computer was of course a Macintosh 128k as pictured to the right. These computers were located in the faculty lounge which is where the attendance office is today in 2019.
1st computer network in the WSD
In 1992, T.H. Bell could also boast that it had the first computer network in the school district. Media Center specialist, Gary Jensen, wired a star network of about 10 windows computers in the library and eventually they were connected electronically to other libraries of information. These computers and the network were the school's first connection to the Internet. Some of the teachers that learned on the Macintosh, were now savvy enough to take their classes to the media center and "Gopher" on the Internet. HTML use on the World Wide Web was in it's infancy at the time and not established as of yet. Everything was text based at the time.
In the video above, students in Mr. Breen's Advanced Projects were the first students in the school to access documents through a computer network. This was the first network at Bell that was installed by the District Technicians: Vaughn Deem (sp), Jerry Olsen, and Larry Swain.
Logo - Minuteman:
The school’s first logo looked like the minuteman to the left. This was definitely what the school had as an logo into the mid 1980’s.
The logo that had worked on letters and mailings for the last quarter of a century was going to stay on mailings, but it was not adequate for viewing electronically.
Logo was used: 1963? - 1987
In the late 1980’s, Art instructor, Mrs. Barnett/Ostberg, with the approval of Principal Paul Ogden, declared a contest open to students to design a new school logo.
Superintendent
Jay Taggart
The winning prize was awarded to T.H. Bell student, Blaine Taggart in 1987. It was believed that Blaine's dad was the model for this winning entry. At the time, Blaine's dad happened to be Superintendent Jay Taggart of Weber School District. He was Superintendent from 1982 –1989. Mr. Taggart then went on to serve as the Utah State Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1990-1992
Logo was used: 1987 - 2004
The new logo was needed out of necessity.
When computers and graphics came of age, it was much easier to change a school logo, and the first need for an new logo was apparent when Technology Instructor and webmaster, Mr. Breen; and Media Specialist, Mrs. Wadsworth-Smith, were developing the school’s first website in 1998-1999. A website was something the school had never had before.
Blaine Taggart’s drawing was eventually converted to a bitmap image and given more detail by Mr. Breen’ s students in 1999 and used on the school's first website.
Over time, the determined, driven, and persistent idea’s, behind the“Fighting Minuteman”became lost in translation by the public and new staff members and acquired the nickname “The Angry Minuteman.”
Website Logo was used: 1999 – 2004
At the request of Principal Corey Jenkins, A new logo was designed and produced by Art instructor, Mr. Farr, during the school year 2003 –2004.
Principal Jenkins wanted Mr. Farr to update the logos that represented each Jr. High school in the district that were on display in the gymnasium. There had been several Jr. High schools built in the district over time, and they needed to be represented. Students were again involved as the logos of all the schools that hang in the gym were drawn and painted by students in Mr. Farr’s art classes.
The result was a change in the design of Bell’s logo with this project. Mr. Farr’s original design is to the left and can be viewed in our gymnasium, and in the tile floors of the school.
Logo was used: 2004 - 2016
Note: This logo is in our tile floors. When they were orginally put in the floors, for months students were told not to walk on the icon. Students walked around the minutman logo so they did not "tread on the minuteman."
This school wide logo was a modified version of Mr. Farr’s design as seen to the left. This image was found on the school’s website through 2011. It is used at the school on official clothing and documents. The most prominent place for this icon is in the tile floor in the front hallway of the school as your enter the building.
Logo was used: 2004 - 2016
The district was moving websites from stand alone designs that were managed by webmasters to templates that were controlled by the school district. When designing the new school website in 2012, everyone involved at the school (Teachers: Mr. Breen, Mrs. Wadsworth-Smith & Administrators: Mr. Patterson, Mr. VandenBosch) and at the district level (Mr. Brooks, and Mr. Coates) wanted a dignified look to the site. The illustration of the minuteman icons in any form did not seem to fit into the rectangular space at the top of the new website. After trying several ideas, Mr. Breen did some work with Adobe Photoshop and came up with the image at the left. It is the traditional look of the minuteman, and as the saying goes “What is old is new again!” If you look very closely, you will see that this image is basically the same as the first illustration. This image is only being used on the school’s website and was retired in 2017.
Logo was used: 2012 - 2017
Principal Lenn Ward used to be coach and head of athletics at T.H. Bell Jr. High when he taught here. He had a sports logo for the football team that was somewhat similar to the New England patriots logo. There was something with the logos being used at Bell that made him uncomfortable with them. The image of a weapon in the school logo. This concern was raised in 2015 when Mr. Ward became Principal. There had been school shootings across the country and students were suspended for weapons in school. Why would the school have as its representation a icon with a gun? It was felt that this tweak was needed to the school icon. Mr. Morris, a coach and spanish teacher, helped out when he asked graphic artist, Matt Crane, to design a new icon. Principal Ward reflected back on the sports logo that he had when he was athletic director and approved this logo drawn by Mr. Crane. The result is what we see currently used at the school.
Logo: 2017 - Current
School's Website:
The original website was a unique website from the start as the home page included 4 pages. It was based on frames. The blue left pane was stagnate and the white page on the right would change when the html code was activated. What really made it unique, was the white and red stripe in the frame. The effect was given by including two pages that were closed to content. Including the school colors were important to the developers in 1998 -1999. Operational 1999 - 2004Above: Original websiteThe original site was built for expansion. The content on the site expanded. One thing that allowed it to grow was that the same two people that developed it were still adding content. Technology & Engineering instructor, Mr. Breen had worked on the design, and relied heavily on Media Center Specialist, Mrs. Wadsworth-Smith for the “look and feel” of the sight.Operational 2004 -2011Above: Modified or rebuilt websiteEven though the old site was still functional, a different concept is now being used district wide. More of the staff is contributing to this website, as the hope is this will be a more robust website, and that information will be easier to find. The website wouldn’t be up this fast without the district programmers in Information Technology having set up a shell for the same two people to “develop Bell’s look.” This website is ultimately a very big collaborative effort! Operational 2012 - 2017Above: Website that was retired in 2017The last version of the website is was also still operational. However, it was the law catching up with the technology that made us change this time. The new website had to be Americans with Disability Act compliant. Everything on this old one was not able to be read by assistive technologies. Operational 2017 - 2019 Above: Website that was retired in 2019The newest website was designed, and developed to be able to be more user friendly to those that are handicapped. It is able to be navigated with a keyboard, and text has been entered so it all can be read by assistive technologies. This one also includes a lot more information. In thinking about the handicapped in its design; it is also hoped it made it easier for everyone to find the information that they are looking for. Operational November 1st 2019 The current ADA Compliant Website
Along with the Website that was retired in 2019 were the animations. Mr. Breen taught animation with the 9th Grade in a Communications class for about a quarter of a century. Students may remember animating their name or making a character that they created blink the eyes. The following are some of his selected animations that were developed for use on this website. The holiday animations were recycled each year.
Hold your cursor over the picture to see the animations.
Fox 13 - Cool School of the Week:
It was a collaborative effort of students that resulted in T. H. Bell being "Cool School of the Week" in 2007. Bell Students voted using many types of electronic devices on the Fox website for this event to occur. The broadcast was on the morning of March 7, 2007. Mouse over for full sized photo.
