Broughton grads, students stake competing claims

RALEIGH -- Ask Broughton High School graduates, especially older ones, where they went to school, and chances are good that their college won't come first to mind.

For many alumni, the 79-year-old school is the alma mater they have the most affection for.

It's no wonder that alumni, many of them community leaders, protested the prospect of having the school's front lawn turned into a parking lot.

"Please think of the front lawn of historic Broughton High School as this grand old stone lady's dress," William Berryhill Jr., a 1959 Broughton graduate, said last week at a meeting of Raleigh's Planning Commission, which voted against it. "In the minds and hearts of its proud alumni, to dare stain her dress with a parking lot would be akin to spray-painting graffiti on Leonardo DaVinci's Mona Lisa."

Broughton has evoked strong feelings since it opened in 1929. The city landmark is Raleigh's oldest high school.

Built on a hill, Broughton resembled a medieval castle. The top of its clock tower made it Raleigh's highest building at the time.

Located at the intersection of St. Mary's and Peace streets, the school initially was surrounded by woods. What's now Cameron Village was the site of annual biology field trips.

It was known only as "The New High School of West Raleigh" for its first year. In 1930, the school was named after Needham Broughton, a prominent businessman and Raleigh school board member who had campaigned for public schooling. It was originally one of only two Raleigh public high schools for white students. The other, Hugh Morson High School, was demolished in 1966.

As Raleigh grew and prospered, so did the families who sent their children to Broughton. Its graduates have played important roles locally, statewide and nationally.

Broughton's progeny include former Raleigh Mayor Smedes York, retired N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Burley Mitchell, Capitol Broadcasting CEO and president Jim Goodmon, Wall Street businessman Richard Jenrette, basketball great "Pistol Pete" Maravich, TV actress Sharon Lawrence and authors Reynolds Price and Anne Tyler.

"Its graduates make up the very core and being of Raleigh's economic and social structure," said Berryhill, a retired U.S. marshal of eastern North Carolina.

Many stakeholders

Many of Broughton's alumni support the school actively. The Broughton Capital Foundation, which funds grants and programs, raised $498,000 in 2007, according to IRS tax records.

But the normally supportive group found itself at odds with Broughton's administrators over the parking lot proposal.

"The most important stakeholders in this matter are the thousands of Broughton graduates over the last 80 years," Charlotte Straney, a 1964 graduate, said at the hearing. "Until now, we have not had a say in the matter."

Straney called the lawn the "sacred expanse of land protecting that historic stone building."

The alumni's pleas resonated with the Planning Commission. Before voting against the parking lot, Planning Commission members Bonner Gaylord and Stephen Smith both fondly recalled their days playing intramural sports on Broughton's lawn.

"If N.C. State or UNC or Duke have a parking need, they don't go and pave the quad," Gaylord said. "They build a parking structure or find alternative means. Paving what's tantamount to the quad of the university would not be appropriate here."

Broughton's immediate challenge, however, is to get more parking and to ease traffic congestion around the school.

Like many older schools, Broughton has far less parking than at newer campuses. Wake County's new high schools have about 800 spaces for students, staff and visitors, but Broughton has only 273. The proposed new lot, which would border Peace Street, would add 126 spaces. Streetscaping would help hide the cars.