What is the Alumni Association?
The Timken Alumni Association was established in 1946 to support the scheduling of class reunions, keep in touch with classmates, and provide scholarship money to assist students in need. Our Alumni Association has almost 1500 members & online registered community members. Join today to see what you’ve been missing!
Mission
The purpose of this association shall be to stimulate interest and support to the activities of Timken High School and to further the friendship and fellowship of the Timken Alumni. In all of its endeavors and activities, this assocation shall maintain the high standards of the school.
High School Overview (1939-2015) provided by Canton City Schools
Timken Vocational High School was the longtime dream of Canton City Schools Superintendent Jesse H. Mason. In 1937, Mason traveled throughout the country visiting vocational high schools in order to incorporate the best features of each into Canton’s new vocational school. To provide a site for this state-of-the-art facility, Central High School was razed in the spring of 1938.
Since the time when the city’s fathers planned Canton, a school has been built on the land upon which Timken Vocational High School stood. This foresightedness was a part of the plan of Bazaleel Wells who gave the original grant to the town; he specified that a school must always sit on this land. With funding and collaboration from H.H. Timken and the Timken Foundation, the new school was built and equipped at a cost of $1.25 million.
Principal Ford O. Harrison led the first staff of 53 instructors. According to the Canton City School District’s “Collection of School Histories,” just before the school was set to officially open. Timken toured the facility unaccompanied by any school officials. Afterward, he told Mason, “That’s a fine school you have built with the money from the foundation, but the boys and girls who will receive their education there will establish its real value.”
As part of the Canton City School District with four quadrants and three district high schools, students from anywhere within the city could choose to take a test and enter a vocational program at Timken. Students were given the opportunity to explore several occupational experiences during their sophomore year. Their junior and senior years were spent in their choice of vocational program. For many years, the Timken Company hired the highest achieving seniors and graduates from Secretarial Class, the Machine Shop, Electric Shop, Data Processing, and Welding Shop.
The new school’s first faculty was composed of a staff of fifty-three instructors. Divisions of Vocation Education organized and operated in TVHS were Trade and Industrial Education, and Distributive Education. The former included shop and drawing classes for adults, as well as classes for apprentices indentured in trades. While TVHS was a vocational school, it also offered students dramatics, public speaking, music, publications, and other extracurricular activities.
In the earliest years of Timken Vocational High School, the building operated 24 hours daily, seven days a week, in cooperation with the War Manpower Commission, training over 5,000 adults in four years for skilled industrial positions needed during the World War II. As the war ended, Timken’s vocational programs were again extended to provide refresher courses to veterans looking for industrial employment. Although Timken was always considered the school for those looking to enter a trade profession, its dedication to the arts, music, sports and other extracurricular activities was always a priority for administration and staff.
Six beautiful murals depicting the themes of science, art, education, industry, community, and religion were painted by student Frank Marchione and placed in the school’s auditorium in 1942. He also painted murals in the library that depicted the American history beginning with the travels of Christopher Columbus through the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
In 1976, the city consolidated their high schools, closing both Lehman and Lincoln, and Timken was no longer a specialized vocational high school. Although the school remained home to most of the district’s career technical programs, the name was changed to Timken Senior High School. The school colors remained blue and gold and the mascot a Trojan.
The Timken Foundation generously contributed again in 1997 to the enhancement of the high school, and Stark State College joined the campus to provide early college classes. Students from the district could then apply to attend early college classes, allowing students to earn an associates degree alongside their high school diploma.
Timken served alongside McKinley Senior High School as one of two comprehensive high schools in Canton until 2015.
A unanimous vote by the Board of Education in February of 2015 saw McKinley and Timken High Schools combined to form one unified high school in the Canton City School District. Timken is now called Canton McKinley Senior High School Downtown Campus. The campus will be fully utilized as the McKinley Freshman Academy and will continue to house the newly renamed Timken Early College High School and several career tech programs.
The pride and legacy of this Canton Institution will long be remembered as our community, both locally and globally, continues to be served by its graduates.
General Information
The Timken High School Alumni Association is a non-profit organization that helps to keep graduates up to date and in contact with each other. Membership cost for the alumni association is $15.00 annually or a lifetime membership of $150. As a paid member you are entitled to receive the newsletters (3 times annually) with information about upcoming reunions, scholarship information, calendar of events, and much more. You also are entitled to 1 FREE ticket to the annual Holiday Dance. Membership is from January 1 – December 31 for each year.
What we are not!
We are not a reunion committee. We provide information to reunion committees about classmates. We keep track of graduates current addresses. We also provide information about deceased graduates. We do not set up or plan reunions. We do not keep funds from graduating classes for future reunions.
We are an organization that supports the ongoings of current Timken students and alumni. We raise funds to support scholarships for current Timken students, sons and daughters of Timken graduates and post graduates. We use membership fees to keep our membership informed about former and current graduates and to preform to the best of our abilities a multitude of functions throughout the year.