T. L. Hanna High School is located at 2600 Highway 81 North, outside the city limits of Anderson, South Carolina, United States. It is one of two high schools in Anderson School District 5 and has a population of nearly 1,800 students. On July 1, 2015, Shawn Tobin was appointed as principal taking the place of long time principal Shelia Hilton, who retired. In 2019, Tobin retired to be replaced by T.L. Hanna graduate, Walter Mayfield. In 1989, the school was named "Palmetto's Finest" by the South Carolina Department of Education. In 2000, it was named a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education. In 2014, U.S. News & World Report named T.L. Hanna as the fifth best high school in South Carolina, and ranked it in the top 3% of high schools in the United States.
History
Before T.L. Hanna High School, there was a Boys High School and a Girls High School. In 1951, Girl's High School changed its name to T.L. Hanna High School. In 1961, the school moved to a new site on Marchbanks Avenue, the current site of McCants Middle School, and became co-ed in 1962. Prior to 1971, T.L. Hanna was Anderson School District 5's all-white high school ; in 1971, the district finally integrated nearly 20 years after the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. During the first year of integration, each grade's student government had two co-presidents, two co-vice presidents, etc., one white and one black. In 1992, the school moved to its current location on Highway 81. In 1996, McDuffie High School closed as an independent vocational/non-college preparatory high school and became the Hanna-Westside Extension Campus, a change which increased and substantially diversified T.L. Hanna's student population It has been an International Baccalaureate school since 2010. T.L. Hanna recently expanded by adding a freshman academy, math hall, new auxiliary gym, and new sports area.
Notable alumni
Chadwick Boseman, actor, writer, and director, Marshall, 42, Get On Up, Draft Day, , Black Panther
James Michael Tyler, actor who played Gunther on the sitcom Friends''
was a young man with an intellectual disability who befriended T. L. Hanna Coach Harold Jones in 1964. The two became great friends, and Kennedy informally worked as an assistant coach under Jones, against considerably push-back from the school administration and members of the football team. Following a 1996 Sports Illustrated profile, their story was made into a feature film, Radio, in 2003. Cuba Gooding Jr. portrayed Kennedy in the film. A large statue of "Radio" is located on the school grounds today. Kennedy died at the age of 72, at his South Carolina home surrounded by his family and friends including Coach Harold Jones, on December 15, 2019.
MTV's ''Made''
came to T.L. Hanna High School in September 2007 to cast for Made, a reality show featuring makeovers of high school students.
