Names and colors changed as school districts combined

If consolidation didn't have its way, that is.

Located in the South Hills portion of Pittsburgh, Brashear High School is a part of the Pittsburgh School District and its athletes compete in the Pittsburgh City League.

On the other hand, Brashear High School no longer exists.

Huh?

In 1933, the first year of FDR's New Deal, Brownsville and South Brownsville boroughs merged to create a new deal of their own, Brownsville Borough. The Class of 1935 the first to graduate from the newly created Brownsville High School, said Brownsville historian Glenn Tunney.

With the creation of the new entity, Brownsville High School's mascot became, alliteratively and logically, the Brownies, with nary a connection to those Brownies in Cleveland.

Nearly a quarter century later, in January 1958, amid considerable local discord, Brownsville and West Brownsville boroughs, and Brownsville, Luzerne and Jefferson townships merged to form the John A. Brashear Joint School District. When the merger became official on July 1, 1958, it immediately became the largest school district in Fayette County.

Even with the name change, the mascot remained the Brownies, and its athletic teams sported school colors of blue and white. South Brownsville's school colors, incidentally, had been red and blue.

Brashear was a familiar name in Brownsville, a prominent family, added Tunney, who taught history for more than 33 years at Brownsville.

John A. Brashear (1840-1920), Tunney explained, was an astronomer and telescope maker born in Brownsville. Assisted by his wife, Phoebe, Brashear made telescopes in a coal shed in their backyard. Although Brashear was successful in producing his telescopes, he was unable to find local financial backing. So he sought investors in Pittsburgh, where considerable funding was readily available.

Brashear perfected his telescopes and created the Brashear Co. Making telescopes became his full-time job.

Brashear made mirrors for some of the largest observatory telescopes in the country, Tunney said. With his business prospering, he lived in Pittsburgh and became such a prominent member of the business community that he at one time was the acting chancellor of what became the University of Pittsburgh and served as a member of the board of directors of what became Carnegie Mellon University.

"Even though he was born in Brownsville and made it his home, he was and is identified with Pittsburgh more than with his native Brownsville," Tunney said.

With school district mergers economically necessary in the 1960s, another union followed: The Redstone Township School District and the John A. Brashear Joint School District merged to form the Brownsville Area School District in 1966, creating the district as it exists today. In 1967, the new combined Brownsville Area High School celebrated its first graduating class. Both Redstone and John A. Brashear Joint high schools graduated their last classes in 1966.

With a new identity, the Brownsville Area High School athletic teams adopted a new mascot and became known as the Falcons, with black and white the school colors

Redstone High School's athletic teams had been known as the Blackhawks, and their school colors were black and white, confirmed Sam Bill, band director at the time of the merger.

Tunney said he "found it interesting" that the new school would have the same colors as Redstone High School.

"Perhaps," Tunney surmised, "this was a gesture toward the residents of Redstone Township, since the new high school was located near Brownsville and the new district would be known as Brownsville, with no reference to Redstone."

In spite of the union, ill feelings remained between Brashear's Brownies and Redstone's Blackhawks, bitter rivals prior to merging. The rivalry was often evident for months after the jointure.

"Students from Redstone and Brownsville actually separated themselves right within the school," said Tunney. "At basketball games, they even sat at opposite sides of the gym."

However, within a year after the merger, those old rivalries between Redstone and Brownsville began to subside. They were virtually nonexistent by the following spring's baseball season.

And the black-and-white Falcons have been soaring ever since.

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