Spring Branch High School, the area’s first public high school, closed in 1985 after serving students for more than 35 years. But its memories live on thanks to a museum established on its former grounds.

And though the museum is named the Spring Branch Senior High School Museum, it goes beyond chronicling the lives of students who attended the high school by also documenting the community in which they lived.

The museum shares a building at 9016 Westview Drive with the Academy of Choice, an alternative school for secondary Spring Branch ISD students.

When Spring Branch High closed, a group of alumni formed the Spring Branch Senior High School Foundation to preserve its history. They secured all the memorabilia they could find, and in the late 1980s opened a one-room museum in the original high school building that then was known as the School of Choice. The building was replaced in 2016.

The nonprofit foundation has about 350 lifetime members and about 150 annual members. The Spring Branch Senior High School Facebook page has more than 3,000 members.

Frank Klam

Frank Klam, volunteer foundation president and a 1968 Spring Branch HS graduate, and Sherry Williams, volunteer museum curator and a 1974 graduate, said the museum is now housed in the original library of Spring Branch HS as SBISD’s gift to the foundation. The museum opened at this site in 2017 to a crowd of more than 400 alumni.
Its two floors of historic memorabilia include material about the founding families of Spring Branch, how its streets were named, and who some are named for.

The museum features a replica of St. Peter United Church located on Long Point Road, which started in 1848 as one of the first churches in Harris County. It hosted one of the area’s first church schools, too, Klam said.

SBISD superintendents are also featured at the museum, as are the graduating classes of Spring Branch HS, their bands, brigades, Future Farmers of America chapters, and notables such as football running back Chris Gilbert, who was inducted in 1999 to the National Football Foundation’s Hall of Fame. The 1965 Spring Branch HS graduate was the first player in NCAA history to record three 1,000-yard running seasons.

Most high schools have homecomings and graduates can visit their old school, said Klam, but  “we don’t have that anymore. We were the only high school from 1949 to 1962. So the history of the high school is the history of the independent school district and that’s one of the things we’re trying to expand.”

“One of the things we’re really focusing on now is community,” said Klam. “We’re trying to let people know the history of Spring Branch.”

Sherry Williams & bear mascot

Williams added, “We need more than just Spring Branch High School graduates to know that this museum exists and it’s for everyone.”

“Not only did my mom and dad graduate from Spring Branch High School, but also numerous aunts and uncles, as well as my husband,” she said. “I had family in this school from 1954 to 1974 and I feel what the museum needs is exposure.”

That’s a reason why the foundation will host on Oct. 21 its third annual car show fundraising event along with a museum open house. The show is open to classics, new cars, trucks and motorcycles from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Cars are displayed in front and on the west side of the building. Past shows have drawn between 40 and 50 cars.

Another fundraising project is the sale of Spring Branch High School Kodiak Bear images — for $125 each — sculpted by Ed Hankey, Class of 1972. He donated the first bear to the 2017 “all class” silent auction reunion. The sculptor still lives in Spring Branch.

Klam said the museum is working with the school district’s curriculum department to incorporate the museum into Texas History, a class required of seventh-graders.

“They can see what the history was,” he added.

Williams, who works full time, said another goal is to involve more people in volunteering with the museum. She said the board “is not getting any younger,” and wants to sustain the museum after the organizers are gone. She is excited that a student is working with the museum to do QR coding for some of the museum displays.

Got to https://www.springbranchbears.com/ for details.

— By Karen Zurawski