EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part four in our series titled After the Fire: An in-depth look at life at Highland High School following the destructive 2023 blaze. This multi-part Idaho State Journal series will continue weekly with part five to be printed in next Saturday’s newspaper. The series will conclude on April 13.

POCATELLO — Highland High School has a long, storied history that is steeped in tradition and that heritage is often reflected in the school’s success on the athletic field.

For decades, Highland has often been synonymous with championship sports teams and extracurricular achievement. Many in the community, especially Highland alumni who now teach at the school, attribute their interest in sports and the successes they’ve had later in life to their dedicated Highland coaches.

While the fire that destroyed Highland’s D Wing and large gym last April affected so many at the school, no one felt the devastating results more than perhaps those in the athletic programs. Highland coaches had to start from scratch because they lost everything in the blaze. Most of the school’s sports equipment did not survive the fire and scheduling for Highland’s sports programs now takes countless hours because of the lack of facilities.

Highland girls basketball head coach Brooke Ward, head baseball coach Christian Colonel and head wrestling coach Kelly Moysh spoke with the Idaho State Journal this week and discussed the challenges they face as they adjust to the new normal after the fire and try to revive Highland’s school spirit.

“When the fire started, it was in the middle of our baseball season last year,” Colonel said. “The shock is still there every time I go out to the baseball field and see there’s no gym and half a building. It’s been tough for the kids. It’s been tough for the staff. It’s been tough for the community. It’s just been a shock for the last year.”

Many of the coaches’ complaints have been related to the lack of facility space since the fire. Even if replacement equipment is ordered and available for Highland’s sports teams, there are often issues with accessibility because the school now must use storage facilities located across the city.

“The girls basketball program lost everything,” Ward said. “Everything was in the coach’s office in the D Wing. We had to borrow basketballs from other schools to even get open gyms going last year. All our equipment had to be reordered. The tough part is that right now we have nowhere to place it. I have totes and totes of uniforms and everything now that the season’s over and I have really no place to put them.”

The girls basketball coaches store what they can in the closet in the lower gym but must share that space with boys basketball and wrestling materials along with volleyball and physical education equipment.

“There’s only so much gym space we have available to us right now,” Ward said. “When we have to impose on other schools in the district, it feels just like that we’re imposing and it’s not a comfortable feeling. It affects the students. They don’t have any pride in their own home gym. They don’t have pride in their facility and having the ability to have a home court advantage or having a home court with our student section.”

Thankfully, community entities such as the Mountain View Event Center and Grace Lutheran High School have helped during this tumultuous year by providing facilities to Highland’s athletic programs. Despite this assistance, there is still a disjointed chaos that the coaches must endure as they try to progress through their respective seasons.

“The lack of space just affects a lot of excitement in school, a lot of the camaraderie,” Colonel said. “It’s a tight space now so everybody is shoulder to shoulder in the hallways. Our sports, clubs, drama, theater, speech and debate and everything extracurricular tend to bring schools together. When we can’t celebrate the small victories or the state championships, that’s tough.”

Colonel continued, “The kids this year and the kids in the foreseeable future don’t get to experience the camaraderie and excitement of an assembly. Everything is off campus right now. It’s really tough to see for the kids. We all know what it’s like, we’ve been through (high school) and we got to experience that. It’s sad that these kids don’t get to experience it this year or next or the next, so it’ll be tough.”

In an attempt to renew Highland’s school spirit and bring the various sports teams and extracurricular programs together, many of the school’s coaches have put in extra work to unify the student body in various capacities.

“We tried to do as much as we could, with team bonding outside of practice, outside of games,” Ward said. “We held a lot of team dinners at different players’ homes where we could give the parents an opportunity to get to know the students, let the players get to know their teammates better.”

Ward continued, “Then just trying to prepare each week for our games has been tough because we don’t have anywhere to watch film to prepare for our games. We had to jump around, whether we were at somebody’s house watching film or we were in one of the classrooms here. It makes it tough when we don’t have somewhere that we feel like we can go and prepare.”

After local voters defeated a $45 million bond last November that would have helped fund renovations and improvements to restore Highland, many at the school have said their morale is waning.

Highland students and faculty alike grapple with the uncertainty of the coming years. It is likely that Highland won’t be restored until 2027 or later.

“It was disappointing,” Colonel said about the defeat of the bond. “It was sad that it failed. I think a lot of people voted on emotions, stereotypes and prejudices of the past rather than facts, love and compassion. It was disappointing and hopefully it will change in the future.”

Colonel continued, “I think in the future, the right decision will be made and we’re going to back whoever makes that decision and we’re going to go for it. We’re in it for the long haul.”

For coaches like Moysh, who is new to School District 25, there is a level of acclimation and adjustment with a lot of diligent hard work already going into his program, along with concerns that future student enrollment growth at Highland may not scale with the current facilities.

“I don’t know about the past, I just know that the area is growing,” Moysh said. “With the state of Idaho going to six (athletic) classifications, if Highland is going to (be a) 6A school, I think we need 6A facilities.... I also think that people need to look to the future a little bit. How are you going to affect that next generation of kids?”

The coaches said School District 25 residents should look at restoring Highland as something that’s needed not just for Highland but for the entire community.

“As a community we need to all come together and support all of the schools and all of the students, not just where my kids go to school or what affects me necessarily right here,” Ward said. “It’s time to come together and put aside some of the other nonsense and really care about all the students in this community and all the staff and all the hard work that they put in. It’s time to start moving on and building something for the community, not just for Highland.”

The coaches said they have personal investments in the well-being of Highland students. Many of the teachers and coaches at Highland have deeper connections to the school in that they are Highland alumni and in some cases their children currently attend the school.

“Number one for me is my son goes to school here,” Colonel said. “He’s a sophomore, so I want him to experience the most he can in the high school experience. I want to try to indirectly give him a lot of experiences that I had as a kid. I had a great high school experience. I want all these kids to have that. I love these kids and I’m in it for the long haul. Highland has a lot of good things happening right now and we’re going to come out for the better. I want to be here at the end to see it.”

Ward added, “These are great kids up here and they work extremely hard. I want to help them develop and progress and build a good experience for them. Something that will create lifelong memories and help prepare them in life. It’s all for the students and I just appreciate how hard they work and how resilient they are. That’s what keeps me going each day.”

Highland’s coaches say they were inspired to enter the education field by their own teachers and this dedication has strengthened their bond with Highland students and the school itself.

“One of the big reasons why I do it is because someone has given back to me and I want to give back,” Moysh said. “I don’t have a kid in the school, but I do have some coming into the school and I want to make sure that they have a good experience because mine was. The kids are still moldable at this stage and seeing what they can do and being a part of that is huge.”