Historian touts importance of The Rayen School

By SEAN BARRON

news@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

When it comes to advanced education, Youngstown State University is probably the first school that comes to mind for most area residents, but a longtime city high school also should be in the mix, a local historian contends.

“The Rayen School, I argue, started higher education in the Valley,” Vincent Shivers told about 40 people who attended a lecture he gave Saturday that was part of a free History-to-Go program at the Tyler Mahoning Valley History Center, 325 W. Federal St., downtown.

Hosting the three-hour program was the Mahoning Valley Historical Society’s Young Leaders Advisory Board.

Shivers, a 1979 Rayen graduate, focused largely on construction of the first school, which opened in 1866 on Wick Avenue on the North Side.

When he was 16, P. Ross Berry, an area abolitionist, philanthropist and contractor, secured the contract to build the school, Shivers noted, adding that Berry also hired many Civil War veterans to assist in the effort, and that the school welcomed black and white students.

The primary architect was Simon Porter, who had also helped design much of downtown Cleveland, he continued.

A sampling of notable Rayen graduates includes William F. Maag Jr., who became editor and publisher of The Vindicator; Dr. Ernest C. Moore, who taught at Harvard and Yale universities; and Milton Warner, who, as a freshman, received 10 school letters in baseball, football and basketball. Later, Warner signed a $150-a-week contract with the New York Giants baseball team before he died in 1914, Shivers noted.

In addition, Berry’s children were graduates, he added.

In March 1921, a ground-breaking ceremony ushered in the second Rayen High School, which opened in September 1922 on an 11-acre site on Benita Avenue, noted Harry Mays, who co-wrote a book titled “The Rayen School 1866-2007: A Retrospective.”

“His progressive vision of an education system started it all,” Mays said, referring to Henry H. Stambaugh, an industrialist and business leader who donated $10,000 toward the new school.

Mays, who also was president of Rayen’s Class of 1958, explained that a new, 9,000-seat football stadium opened in early 1924. The move started the longtime tradition of football games between Rayen and rival South High School on Thanksgiving, he said.

Mays also showed his audience a sampling of essays, short stories, sonnets and editorials that appeared in early editions of The Rayen Record, the school newspaper. Maag was the monthly paper’s founder and first editor, Mays noted.

Saturday’s program also featured a viewing of a mural that Rayen art teacher John Benninger painted in 1958 that was installed in a hallway near the auditorium until the school closed in 2007.

Class of 1958 members had raised and donated funds for the installation.