Soaring for a Quarter-Century
“I’m proud to be an eagle, eagles soar, and they do great things, so the students here at Akins High School will do great things. I hope the students will do well, I know they will, and then we have developed an alma mater so soon, I see all this, and schools have been open, what, 4 and a half months, haven’t we accomplished a lot in such a short span of time.”
Dr. Akins said these words at the dedication ceremony during the first school year Akins High School was opened. August 2025 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Akins’ opening its doors to students for the first time. Since then, Akins has accomplished numerous achievements, including state finals marching band appearances, multiple visual arts awards, state wrestling appearances, and playoff appearances for various sports teams.
The Man Behind The Name
However, before we delve into the amazing aspects of Akins, let’s take a brief look at the origins of Akins High School and its establishment as a school.
The namesake of Akins High School, William Charles Akins, was born on November 9, 1932, in Austin, Texas. He attended a segregated school, Blackshear Elementary, then attended Kealing Middle School, and Anderson High School followed. At Anderson Middle School, he met WB Campbell, who inspired him to become a principal.
After graduating and pursuing education after high school, he eventually became a teacher and was voted teacher of the year in 1962 at his alma mater, Anderson High School. When AISD later integrated, he became the first African American teacher in the integrated school district.
He later received many more awards, and whenever the city of Austin planned to open a new school, it was named after Dr. William Charles Akins.
Growing Pains and Hollywood Lights
Attending Akins High for the first few years was an interesting time, because not only was it the beginning of a new school, with people coming and going and getting used to the way things worked at Akins, but they also had to share the building with a middle school.
Michael Welch, an Akins alumnus who attended Akins from the years 2000 to 2004, said, “…we only used half the school. Small Middle School used the other half while their school was finishing being built. We used the Red Halls; they used the Green Halls. There were class bells going off all the time! It was Nuts!”
Not only was the Akins building being shared, but a movie titled The New Guy was filmed at Akins. “Our school was used for the movie The New Guy. They changed the name of the school temporarily, and we had fake parking signs for the “head cheerleader” during filming,” said Leah Tung.
Facing a Changing World
Although the start of Akins was going great, a major event that impacted not just the United States but the world happened, as we know today, to be the attacks of 9/11. 9/11 was a series of attacks led by a terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda, which caused the collapse of the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, and the crash of an airplane that carried many passengers.
This led to the deaths of many innocent civilians and caused a worldwide shock, and forever changed the United States. “After that day, we all saw how ugly the world we were about to venture into could be. We looked at each other differently. Treated each other differently,” said Akins Alumni Jenma Sager. Former teacher Debra Squires says she “… remember(s) watching the 9/11 attacks on TV at school in my classroom. It was a time when it felt like everyone shared an experience.”
Those attacks were not the only negative experiences that impacted those students; there were more local negative influences going on that affected those students. According to Jessica L. Sanchez, an old Akins student who wrote for the school newspaper The Eagle’s Eye, wrote in an October 2002 article that says, “A lot of gang recruitment starts at school. Most gang association starts the first day of school, which is one reason there are so many fights on the first day. Fights occur to protect or claim a territory or members. Initiations can also occur on the first day.”
She writes. “They are all over Austin, their influences spread over both sides of I-35, and their marks are all over buildings around town.” Because of the gang violence and other activities that happen in the Akins area, people outside the school believed that the students at Akins didn’t have the potential to accomplish major achievements.
In a documentary film about the Akins Eagles Band, Gary Faust, the band director at that time, stated that “many detractors believed that Akins could not be the best because of the neighborhoods the school draws its students from.” In 2006, Faust led the band to state finals, and to celebrate, he tattooed the Akins motto, “Big+Bold, Blue+Gold”, on his leg. Since then, the Akins band has continued to win and earn plenty of awards at the regional and state levels.
Pioneering the Academy Model
A major thing that happened at Akins that made Akins unique is adding the academies that will help lead students to a career path they have an interest in pursuing. Akins Alumni and old staff members agree that this was a major addition to the school that was very beneficial. “… when we became a smaller learning community and broke off into academies, was probably the biggest impact,” said David Lopez, one of the past Criminal Justice teachers. Akins’ second principal, Mary Alice Deike, was the one who implemented the academies, according to former staff faculty, Rob Chesire, “Mary Alice Deike [was the] guiding principal and visionary that transformed Akins into the first academy-structured high school in Austin ISD.” Some academies started sooner than others. The first four academies, AHA, ABLLE, were added in…. Later, the STEM, New Tech, and ECHS academies were added. This has enabled students to participate in classes and practice the skills necessary for their future careers, while also earning certifications. Other cool programs added to Akins, such as Austin Corps. Austin Corps was added in 2013 as an internship opportunity for students interested in learning how city government works.
A Legacy of Activism and Voices for Change
Dr.Akins has been all about inspiring change and bringing up future leaders who make an impact in their community. A way a student did this was by staging a walkout during school to protest against Trump’s policies. Now, while many saw this as an inappropriate action to protest during school, and not some time after or during the weekend, it showed that students were still aiming to make an impact.
Past Principal Ms.Hosak stated over the intercom, “Ultimately, don’t sacrifice your education, finish high school, and go to college. Don’t fight fire with fire,” she said. “Education is the one thing that someone can’t take away from you. That is what Dr. Akins believes as do other adults in this building. I want you to have a great day. I want you to learn something today. I want you to be spiffingly engaged with learning, and I want you to do it with class.” Shortly after, the namesake of Akins, a trailblazer and a huge historic figure in the community, passed away on March 29, 2017.
A few years later, a global virus known as COVID-19 emerged. The virus impacted many people and changed the way we live our lives forever. Because of this, the 2020-2021 school year was a very interesting time. The school was divided between half the students attending school virtually and half of the students attending school in person, while following social distancing and sanitary guidelines to protect themselves and others from the virus. Due to all of this, many of the teachers and students found themselves in a lot of stress,
“The changes in schedules and the toll on mental and physical health has been even harder for students, teachers and parents,” English teacher Alex Vasquez said. A past student named Karen Vasquez, “My grades have not been good since I have been online. I had said it is because I do not feel the same responsibility as I do in the classroom because during online school I do not have an actual teacher and just being at home can make me really distracted.”
After a couple of years of online schooling, all students later returned to school in person in the 2021-2022 school year. Since then, students have been trying to recover and get back to the way school life was before the pandemic.
From sharing a building with a middle school, to marching in state finals, to navigating national tragedy and global pandemic, Akins High School has grown through every challenge. Its students, past and present, continue to define what it means to be an Eagle: resilient, bold, and determined to rise above expectations.
As Dr. Akins said 25 years ago, “Eagles soar, and they do great things.”
A quarter-century later, the legacy of Akins High School proves that he was right.
Your donation will support the student journalists of Akins High School. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.
