Oak Park and River Forest High School, or OPRF, is a public four-year high school located in Oak Park, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is the only school of Oak Park and River Forest District 200.
Founded in 1873, the current school building opened in 1907. A comprehensive college preparatory school, OPRF has had a long history of not only turning out alumni who have made contributions in a wide variety of fields, but have consistently been eminently notable in their fields. Perhaps the most notable is Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning author Ernest Hemingway, whose writing career began at the school.
Throughout most of its history, the school has been a centerpiece of the Oak Park community, serving as host to a number of community events. Many of these events included lecturers and performances from many notable people from a variety of fields. Throughout the twentieth century, the school also was on the front lines of students rights issues ranging from fraternity/sorority membership in the early twentieth century, to the rights of homosexuals and African-Americans at the century's end.
Read more about Oak Park And River Forest High School: History, Academics, Notable Staff
Famous quotes containing the words oak, park, river, forest, high and/or school:
“Where he swings in the wind and rain,
In the sun and in the snow,
Without pleasure, without pain,
On the dead oak tree bough.”
—Edward Thomas (1878–1917)
“Is a park any better than a coal mine? What’s a mountain got that a slag pile hasn’t? What would you rather have in your garden—an almond tree or an oil well?”
—Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944)
“The murmurs of many a famous river on the other side of the globe reach even to us here, as to more distant dwellers on its banks; many a poet’s stream, floating the helms and shields of heroes on its bosom.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This land is your land, this land is my land, From California to the New York Island. From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for you and me.”
—Woody Guthrie (1912–1967)
“Like all high functionaries, he deemed it indispensable religiously to sustain his dignity; one of the most troublesome things in the world, and one calling for the greatest self-denial.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than as a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.”
—Henry David David (1817–1862)