Wayne High School

1971 – present

Founded: Wayne opened in 1971 at 9100 Winchester Road, one of the two high schools opened the year Central closed, taking the southern side of the attendance map the board redrew to desegregate the city high schools. Wayne and Northrop are twins, identical buildings raised at the same time; district summaries date their dedications to the spring of 1972. Wayne's first principal was William Davis, who served from 1971 to 1985. The class of 1974 described itself as the first class to complete its whole high school education at Wayne; most of the first students came from South Side and Elmhurst.

Namesake: The question is open in the record. The Waynedale News names General Anthony Wayne, the Revolutionary general for whom the city itself is named, and the Generals nickname fits a military namesake. But no Fort Wayne Community Schools page, board naming record or dedication program found for this record confirms it, and the school also stands in Wayne Township. The assertion is carried here as the community paper's, not as settled fact.

The building: The two-story brick building of 1971, added to in 1995 and 2011, went more than fifty years without a major renovation. Voters approved a bond in the spring of 2020 by nearly 73 percent, and from March 2022 to August 2024 the school was rebuilt inside for about $50 million: air conditioning throughout, a secure entrance with the main office moved beside it, a transformed media center and cafeteria, a dance room, a consolidated ROTC suite, modernized auditorium and gymnasium, and a final dining phase completed in the fall of 2025. Design Collaborative was the architect, on a 300,000-square-foot project.

Course: Enrollment ran 1,375 in 1987, fell to 964 by 2003, and recovered to 1,398 in 2024-25. Wayne is the top of the district's Montessori magnet chain: Bunche Montessori feeds Towles Intermediate, and Towles feeds Wayne's New Tech Academy, a school within the school built on project-based learning. Miami and Portage middle schools are its neighborhood feeders. Through Ivy Tech, Wayne's Early College program lets students earn an associate degree while still in high school, and the school stands on the University of Indianapolis list of endorsed Early College high schools. The district's Air Force Junior ROTC, established in 1994-95, is based at Wayne, and South Side students may take part in it.

Athletics: The Generals play in the Summit Athletic Conference. The IHSAA record gives Wayne the 1995 Class 4A football championship, a 28-8 defeat of Franklin County under coach Mark Newlin, with senior Darnell LoVett scoring three touchdowns; Wayne had been the 4A runner-up in 1992. The IHSAA's own finals program credits the 1978-79 girls track and field title, won over South Side 48-36. In 2023 the boys basketball team won its first sectional title since 1994. A commercial claim of a 1993 boys basketball state title has no IHSAA support and is not carried here.

Today: Wayne is a Fort Wayne Community Schools high school for grades nine through twelve on the city's southwest side, home to New Tech Academy. Its principal is Emily Oberlin, formerly the academy's director.

Sources:

1. News-Sentinel, Era of Crises, and Leo Morris on the Central closing: the 1971 reorganization and its reasons.
2. The Waynedale News, 13 August 2021 and 31 March 2023: the fiftieth anniversary, the Anthony Wayne assertion, the renovation and its bond.
3. Allen County INGenWeb, High Schools in Allen County: the twin buildings and the spring 1972 dedications.
4. Wayne Sentry yearbook, 1974: the first class to complete its education at Wayne.
5. Indiana High School Athletic Association: the 1995 football title, the 1992 runner-up finish and the 1978-79 girls track title.
6. Fort Wayne Community Schools: New Tech Academy, Early College, JROTC, feeders and the principal.
7. National Center for Education Statistics: the enrollment series and 1,398 students in 2024-25.