Zama MS (JHS) History
Opened: 1968
Closed: 1992
Zama American Middle School was located at Camp Zama which is located on the outskirts of metropolitan Tokyo near the edge of the Tamagawa Mountains. The school was located on the post, near the eighteen-hole golf course on one side and a housing area on the other side.
The school facilities included a gymnasium, industrial arts room, home economics room, a photo lab, and a 10,000-volume library. During the 1980-81 school year, music classes were conducted at the new high school across the football field.
The principal for 1977–1979 was Mr. Loyd Walker. He was followed by Gordon Gartner for the 1979-80 school year and then Richard Snell for the next three years. Mr. Milton Halloran became the principal for the 1983-84 school year and remained in this position for the next six years. When the school was designed as a junior high for the 1990-91 and 1991-92 school years, the principal was Dr. Lowell Jacobson.
From the late seventies until the early eighties the school enrollment for sixth through eighth grade was between 200 and 250 students. The enrollment increased to almost four hundred students during the 1982-83 school year. The following year the school only had seventh and eighth graders with an enrollment of two hundred seventy-five.
By the 1987-88 school year, the school had 260 students in grades seven and eight. The next and the last year for the middle school there were 230 seventh and eighth graders enrolled in school.
Throughout the years of the middle/junior high school, student activities were an integral part of the program. Often school sports program were integrated with the Dependent Youth Activities program. Sports at the school included boys’ and girls’ basketball, football, cheerleading, girls’ volleyball, and gymnastics. The school had a student council and yearbook publication in the late seventies. In 1981, the school had its first Hispanic Festival, followed by Black History Week celebrations in 1984. By the mid-eighties, there were several levels of band and chorus. The first newspaper, ZMS Times, and first chapter for National Junior Honor Society were begun during the 1982-83 school year. Zama Middle School also participated in district and regional programs such as Brain Bowl and Geography Bee.
The yearbook was often called Omiode, which is Japanese for memories.
A new facility was opened for the 1990-91 school year, and it was called Zama Junior High. The junior high was only open for two years, and then the students attended Zama High School.
Information from internet sites, school yearbooks and DoDDS School Information Guides