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Bridgewater-Raritan High School (commonly abbreviated as BRHS) is a four-year comprehensive public high school. It is the lone secondary school of the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District serving students in ninth through twelfth grades from Bridgewater Township and Raritan in Somerset County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The school has been recognized by the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program, the highest award an American school can receive. History and symbols Until the 1950s, high school students from the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District attended Somerville High School and Bound Brook High School. With the opening of the high school, the Somerville district saw the loss of 370 Bridgewater students that had attended the district's high school. Bridgewater-Raritan High School was opened in September 1959, with students in ninth and tenth grades; those students moving into eleventh and twelfth grades remained at Somerville High School, with the final set of Bridgewater and Raritan students graduating with the Class of 1961. Norman A. Gathany serving as the school's first principal. Increasing enrollments in the early 1960s led to the construction of a second high school in 1966, which was named Bridgewater-Raritan High School East (the Minutemen), while the original high school was renamed Bridgewater-Raritan High School West (the Golden Falcons). Declining enrollments led to their consolidation into a single high school during the 1990s. The former High School West was expanded and updated over a period of several years, during which all of the district's high school students attended what had been High School East. The former High School West reopened in 1992 as the new consolidated Bridgewater-Raritan High School, while the High School East became the district's middle school. The mascot of BRHS is the panther. BRHS's school colors were previously black and silver, with red serving as an accent color, but now are primarily only black and white. The red in uniforms of the past has been mostly replaced by silver, or no accent color has been added. The football, baseball, boys lacrosse, girls basketball, and various other teams have eliminated red from their uniforms. A minority of teams, including boys basketball and boys cross country, have continued use of red as an accent color. The uniforms for the marching band are black and red with silver buttons and helmets. The high school's football field is "Basilone Field", named for John Basilone, a World War II recipient of the Medal of Honor who grew up in Raritan. On the wall of the field house next to the field is a mural honoring Basilone. In December 2009, two minors, a 16-year-old Bridgewater-Raritan student and a 17-year-old student from nearby Immaculata High School, were arrested in connection with an alleged Columbine-like plan to attack the school. Awards, recognition and rankings During the 1999–2000 school year, Bridgewater-Raritan High School was recognized with the National Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence by the United States Department of Education. For the 1997–98 school year, Bridgewater-Raritan High School was named a "Star School" by the New Jersey Department of Education, the highest honor that a New Jersey school can achieve. BRHS is one of only three high schools in the state to have received both awards. In the 2011 "Ranking America's High Schools" issue by The Washington Post, the school was ranked 36th in New Jersey and 1,190th nationwide. In Newsweek's May 22, 2007 issue, ranking the country's top high schools, Bridgewater-Raritan High School was listed in 983rd place, the 29th-highest ranked school in New Jersey. The school was the 76th-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 339 schools statewide in New Jersey Monthly magazine's September 2014 cover story on the state's "Top Public High Schools", using a new ranking methodology. The school had been ranked 113th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 67th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 91st in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was also ranked 83rd in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state. In previous years, the school had been ranked in the 20s in the same ranking. Following publication of the 2006 New Jersey Monthly article, the school's principal issued a public statement explaining changes in the magazine's ranking methods that altered the school's standing, and generally criticizing the ranking methodology. Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 83d out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (a decrease of 20 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (89.0%) and language arts literacy (96.1%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA). In its 2013 report on "America's Best High Schools", The Daily Beast ranked the school 442nd in the nation among participating public high schools and 37th among schools in New Jersey. In its listing of "America's Best High Schools 2016", the school was ranked 108th out of 500 best high schools in the country; it was ranked 20th among all high schools in New Jersey and seventh among the state's non-magnet schools. In 2023, the school ranked in the top 42 schools in New Jersey, as well as in the top 1000 ranked schools nationally according to a report by U.S. News & World Report. Music Choir There are three curricular choirs: the Mixed Choir and two choirs that require an audition Select Women's Ensemble and Symphonic Choir. There are four extra-curricular ensembles, Ensembros (all male a cappella), the Glee Club, the Lorelei women's ensemble, and Men's Choir. Choirs at BRHS often collaborate with other ensembles, most recently having performed the Mozart Requiem with the Central New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. In the spring of 2015, the Symphonic Choir performed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Solemn Vespers with the National Festival Chorus at Carnegie Hall. In 2009, the Chamber Choir participated in a concert of Brazilian music at Westminster Choir College. In the spring of 2008, the BRHS Chamber Choir performed Joseph Haydn's Kleine Orgelmesse with Masterwork Chorus and Orchestra at Drew University's Dorothy Young Center for the Arts. Orchestra The orchestras travel the region attending various festivals and events. The ensembles annually approach serious orchestral literature, including performing movements from Sibelius' Fifth Symphony. Past achievements include performing at Carnegie Hall in March 2008 along with the school's Wind Ensemble. There are two curricular orchestral ensembles, the Concert Orchestra and the auditioned Symphonic Orchestra. Band The school's wind ensemble has performed in the State Gala concert numerous times within the past decade. The symphonic band and wind ensemble have perform.... Discover the Kristen Helmstetter popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Kristen Helmstetter books.