Throughout the 1970s the new Sooner High Spartans across town engendered great school spirit among the rival College High Wildcats. Each school would burn the other's mascot during pep rallies the night before their annual football game.
The 1970s brought the Secretarial Club and other clubs focused on students' personal interests and issues, such as Contemporary Music, Photography, Rodeo, Interracial Relations, and Afro-Americans. A notable addition to Col-Hi in the 1970s was math teacher John Baird, whose 1974 Calculus course was the first Advanced Placement course at the school. He would teach it at the site until his retirement in 2005 and is remembered for his John Baird Society (JBS), which met at his home to prepare for tests. For many years the JBS had an annual Christmas party, which sometimes included "Calculus Carols" sung at teachers' homes.
The character of the school was changing to keep up with the times. The traditional pep club disbanded in 1971, and the "Wild Bunch", consisting of boys and girls, was formed.
John C. Haley retired in 1973 after 27 years at College High. Students campaigned to have sixteens acres of floodplain land purchased for the John C. Haley Environmental Laboratory in his honor.
Jim Morrel was the next principal for a year, followed by Col-Hi's final principal, Dennis Pannell. Reportedly no proms were held in 1975 or 1976 due to protests over a rule regarding who could attend and also supposedly after a raucous assembly over changing a prom date to match a band's schedule. The Alternative High School Program, which was located at various sites, began in 1977. In the late 1990s it began to share the former Col-Hi campus with the regular high school.
Photographs
Facility History
College High Emblems
Around the time Sooner High opened, a Wildcat tile mosaic was added to the floor of the main foyer. It was removed in the summer of 2012 when all of the floor tiles in the main building were replaced. Raised lettering for "College High School" was also added to the west exterior of the auditorium; it would be removed in the 1980s when the two high schools were merged.
John C. Haley Environmental Laboratory
In 1970, the staff of the Nautilus yearbook lobbied to have floodplain southeast of campus purchased to create a John C. Haley Environmental Laboratory in honor of long-term principal Haley, who loved to garden. In 1973, 16 acres of floodplain land southeast of campus was added for $11,690 and a pond developed for this outdoor classroom. It was neglected in later decades until the land was redeveloped in 2001 for practice fields and parking with an improved pond and additional land to the east was purchased to form a new John C. Haley Environmental Laboratory that is used by the school's life science classes.