presentation secondary school grogan's road

All Things Wexford

Grogan’s Road, Wexford

Grogan’s Road in Wexford Town is best known for being home to the Presentation Secondary School and the County Clinic. The street slopes down from the bottom of Summerhill before meeting up with Carrigeen Street ,  Roche’s Road and St. Peter’s Square . During the 1600s, the street was known as Bishop’s Street.

Above: A photograph of the eastern half of Grogan’s Road. The green gates on the left belong to the Presentation Secondary School, which is a Catholic secondary school for girls. The stone walls on the right belong to the County Clinic. In the past, the main entrance of the clinic was situated to the right of this photograph. However, in recent years, the walls around the clinic were redone and the entrance in question was removed.

Presentation Secondary School.

The origins of the Presentation Secondary School in Wexford can be traced back to October of 1818, when two nuns from the Presentation Congregation in Kilkenny set up a convent in the town. Originally, it started out as a Primary School, before transitioning to a second-level school during the 1940s. The school is founded on the ideals of Honora “Nano” Nagle, an Irish woman from Cork that founded the Presentation Sisters during the 1700s. Nano Nagle is considered to be one of the chief pioneers of Catholic education in Ireland throughout the 18th Century.

Above: The western half of the street. On the left, you can just about make out the entrance to the County Clinic. The wall and gates on the right surround the sports fields of the Presentation Secondary School.

Fever Hospital.

In 1818, Grogan’s Road became home to a Fever Hospital that had six wards and sixty beds. Because Wexford had a busy port at the time, the town often fell victim to epidemics and outbreaks. The Fever Hospital on Grogan’s Road, which is situated where the County Clinic is today, was often used to house patients that had become infected with Cholera; a bacterial infection that is typically transmitted via contaminated food. In his book The Streets of Wexford, Nicky Rossiter tells us how the Cholera epidemic that hit Wexford during 1832 could be traced back to the Bengal region of India. The outbreak in Wexford started when two sailors died from Cholera while their schooner was docked at Wexford Quay .

County Clinic.

The County Clinic opened in December of 1955; on the site where the Fever Hospital had been located. The clinic manages a wide range of services, from the registration of birth certificates to dental healthcare. It is also well-known for being the location of Wexford’s Caredoc, which provides GP care to people outside of regular working hours. This includes 24 hour service on weekends and special holidays, as well as night-time cover on weekdays ( Note:  If you found this article while searching for contact information for Caredoc; then you should know that the phone number is 1850 334 999 and that a map is available at the end of this article).

1901 Census.

The 1901 Census shows us that families such as Barnes, Kinsella, Stone and Cullen lived on Grogan’s Road. Here are a few examples of the families that were listed in the census:

• 1 Grogan’s Road : This was home to a young married couple called Thomas Barnes (22) and Mary Ann Barnes (20). Thomas worked as a pattern maker and Mary worked as a dress maker.
• 10 Grogan’s Road : This house was occupied by a 34-year-old widow called Bridget Evans and her four children, who were aged between 4 and 15.

A map showing the location of Grogan’s Road in Wexford Town:

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Presentation Secondary School, Wexford

• Address: Grogan's Road
• Tel: 053 912 4133
• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.preswex.ie

Mission Statement

Presentation, Wexford, is a Catholic Secondary School for girls only, guided by the ideals of Nano Nagle, foundress of the Presentation Congregation.

“Inspired by the vision of Nano Nagle, our school is committed to the pursuit of excellence in a caring, respectful and inclusive community.”

School History

The Presentation Congregation was founded in Cork in 1775 by Nano Nagle, a daughter of one of the oldest families in the country. The aim was to help downtrodden citizens by the only means in her power – to provide them with schools and education. The story of Presentation, Wexford, started in October 1818, when two sisters came from the already established convent in Kilkenny.

They started by opening a Primary school. About 1940 a second-level school was established and in the following years the school became a fully recognized Secondary school.

The Presentation order was established in Wexford town in October 1818, being the first religious order to come to the town after the Penal Laws. In the 1820s, the Presentation Sisters established a school, which has, over time, developed into the Presentation Secondary School. We will mark 200 years of providing education to the town of Wexford in 2018.

The school currently operates under the trusteeship of C. E. I. S. T. (Catholic Education an Irish Schools Trust). As such, it supports the Religious and Educational Philosophy of its Founder, Nano Nagle. Religious Education takes a central place in the life and curriculum of the school. We are an all-girl, voluntary secondary school and are situated in a primarily residential area of Wexford town.

Presentation School Wexford aims, with the resources available, to provide the best possible environment in which to facilitate the cultural, educational, moral, physical, religious, social, linguistic and spiritual values and traditions of all students.

Presentation Secondary School, Wexford provides for a wide range of artistic, cultural, social and sporting activities to develop the talents of all students and to provide them with the confidence to be involved in various activities in later life. The school also places great emphasis on the development of competitive games for all its students.

Working together as a school community, the Board of Management, parents, staff and students aim to provide an environment that will allow each student to develop intellectually, physically, morally, socially and spiritually so that she will be able to fulfil her role in society.

The current student cohort of 803 reflects a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds and includes students from the locality and a considerably large rural hinterland. There is a strong culture of C. P. D. for the teaching staff within the school. The school offers the Junior Certificate, an optional and well-established Transition Year (T. Y.) programme, the established Leaving Certificate and L.C.V.P. We have approximately 26 schools in our catchment area. ​

News from Presentation Secondary School, Wexford

05 Oct 2020

Presentation secondary school wexford news – october 2020.

Irish International Recognised 3rd year student Katie Law pictured with Principal Mr William Ryan holding a framed Republic…

29 Jan 2020

Presentation wexford news – january 2020.

Curriculum Forum 2020 As we enter​ a new year, the school has continued the process of looking forward…

17 Dec 2019

Presentation wexford choir light up nathan carter concert.

Presentation Choir Light Up Nathan Carter Concert Presentation Secondary School Wexford had the privilege of opening the show…

14 May 2019

Presentation wexford newsletter 2019.

Easter Newsletter The Presentation Secondary School Wexford Easter newsletter is now available. This newsletter is a round-up of…

20 Dec 2018

Celebrations as presentation mark 200 years.

Celebrations as Presentation mark 200 Years The entire school community came together in October for a week that…

20 Sep 2018

Presentation wexford autumn newsletter 2018.

Welcome to the first newsletter of the 2018/2019 academic year! A new group of Journalism students in Transition…

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Joni Huntley's name still carved in Oregon track and field record books 50 years later

Joni Huntley is a two-time Olympian with a bronze medal and a career full of high jump records at every level in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Some of those records lasted for decades. Two still stand.

She broke barriers for female athletes across the country in the early days of Title IX and is considered a track and field trailblazer, at one time the best high jumper in the United States and one of the best in the world.

She set the bar high in high school despite a lack of facilities and formal training, making what she did 50 years ago at the 1974 OSAA state track and field championships even more remarkable.

Huntley won three state titles, broke two national prep records, and single-handedly lifted Sheridan High School to a share of the 2A team championship.

Her 6-foot high jump established a national record. It was the oldest state meet record in any classification recognized by the OSAA until 2013 and still stands in what is now 4A. She also set a national record in the 110-yard hurdles.

Huntley scored all 38 of her team’s points that May weekend at Silke Field in Springfield.

“That was fun,” she said recently from her home just outside Newberg. “I hadn’t done much to that point, hadn’t gone to the Olympics. That was a big day.”

Huntley set other records, won national collegiate titles, and earned the bronze medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

She hesitates to rank the accomplishments but said there was something extra special about high school and that state meet performance her senior year.

Making do without a track or high jump pit

Huntley grew up in Sheridan, then a small town of about 2,000. She began competing in track and field events at age 9 with no formal coaching, only support from her parents, Ralph and Ann. Dad had an insurance business. Mom was a schoolteacher.

Her high school did not have a track, let alone a high jump pit.

She remembers working out in the gym, in hallways and on the football field with her teammates, even practicing the high jump on a wood frame in the school parking lot. Foam-filled cotton bags were used for the landing area.

Her dad helped rig the makeshift pit, having to drive out of town to get the materials.

The Sheridan track and field coaches knew little about the sport. They were teachers paid to supervise student-athletes after school. But with a whole lot of talent, just as much determination, and a bit of direction from a student-teacher, Huntley excelled.

She used a scissor kick technique until her freshman year when that student-teacher drove her 38 miles to Pacific University in Forest Grove to watch a film about the “Fosbury Flop.” It was a relatively new technique named after Dick Fosbury, the 1968 Olympic gold medalist who perfected the style of jumping “backward” over the bar. Fosbury narrated the film.  

The next year, using the Fosbury flop, Huntley won the first of three straight state titles.

She was not the only track and field standout in the family. Older brother Jerry (1973 pole vault) and younger sister Sandy (1976 long jump and 1978 shot put) both won individual state titles.

Joni won six from 1972 to 1974 — three in the high jump and one each in the long jump, 110-yard hurdles and 100-yard dash.

Going the distance to chase Olympic dreams

Huntley’s Olympic dreams began early and were solidified the summer after her sophomore year when she qualified for the 1972 U.S. Olympic trials. She was 15.

Even though she no-heighted, failing to make a valid jump, it did not derail her dreams. If anything, it made her more determined.

She continued to compete in national and international meets, but the real work took place closer to home in Monmouth and Corvallis. She went there to practice on a real high jump pit.

Huntley spent an afternoon a week her junior year at what is now Western Oregon University, leaving school early, getting out of shorthand class, and driving her dad’s Chevy pickup.

The 25-mile road trips to Monmouth paid off. She repeated as the 2A state high jump champion in 1973.

She traveled further her senior year, training on Saturdays at Oregon State University. It was about a 48-mile drive from Sheridan to Corvallis. A high jumper for the OSU men’s track team, Glen Stone, volunteered to coach her.

Early in 1974, in the weeks leading up to her final state track meet, she set an American women’s indoor record with a leap of 6 feet, ½ inch at a developmental meet in Oakland, California. She made the height on her first try, becoming the first U.S. woman to clear 6 feet.

She also traveled to Japan for an exhibition series and won the high jump at a U.S.-Russia meet in Moscow.

In between and before the state meet, Huntley remembers doing countless interviews and photo shoots.

A half-page spread in the sports section of The Oregon Statesman included photographs of one of her workouts at OSU. Three frames break down her jumping form.

The headline: “Sheridan Lass on Top of Nation as High Jumper.”

Other photos showed her running in the halls of Sheridan High with teammates and studying in the school library. Huntley was an all-around student-athlete, ranking second in her class of 53.

On a side note, she sewed and made the pants she was wearing in the library photo.

'Charmed' career includes long list of accomplishments

Huntley did not wilt under the spotlight. She dominated the competition in high school, with her high jump marks good enough to have won state titles at any classification.

After graduating, she continued to excel on a bigger stage, reportedly bettering her American record four times in 1974 and 1975. The timeline of her accomplishments is a bit fuzzy, though.

Huntley tried looking up some of the details on the Internet while being interviewed by the Statesman Journal, with mixed results. She said she has a collection of scrapbooks in storage that could provide clarity, as could the medal boards her dad made, also in storage.

But she does have access to a silver charm bracelet, which she thought she lost in a move a couple of years ago but found in a safety deposit box.

“Every time I jumped higher, my mom and dad would buy me a silver charm,” Huntley said.

A family friend gave her the bracelet and first charm, and her parents carried on the tradition.

The bracelet has 38 disc charms, each a half-inch to an inch in diameter and inscribed with the year, location and height she cleared. On one end is a tiny silver airplane commemorating her first flight to a competition in New York City and at the other a disc embellished with the Olympic rings.

Some of the charms signify awards she received. Side by side are disks for the 1974 Johnny Carpenter Award for the Oregon high school athlete of the year and the 1974 Hayward Award for the state’s top amateur athlete. Huntley was the first to win both awards in the same year.

Huntley still holds Oregon State high jump record

Huntley's path to the Olympics returned to Corvallis. Attending Oregon State was her destiny because she wanted to train under head track and field coach Berny Wagner, who became a household name after coaching Fosbury to the gold medal.

Wagner drummed up some financial support for Huntley through a university booster group. She was the first female to receive an athletic scholarship at OSU.

Huntley remembers it not sitting well with other female track athletes, who believed money corrupted sports.

Until she arrived on campus, no women had been allowed on the OSU track during the men’s practice.

“They knew I was serious, so they allowed me to train with them, and they coached me,” Huntley said.

She won national collegiate championships in the high jump and long jump her first year at Oregon State. Her 1975 high jump of 6 feet, 2 ¾ inches set an OSU record that still stands .

Huntley left Oregon State after one year. She was ranked third in the world, had her sights set on the 1976 Olympics, and Wagner had departed to develop a track and field program in Saudi Arabia.

She moved to Los Angeles to work with Olympic assistant coach David Rodda and enrolled at Long Beach State.

Bronze medal performance gets overshadowed

Huntley trained for three Olympics and jumped in two. She placed a disappointing fifth in 1976 in Montreal, was plagued with injuries in 1980 when the U.S. boycotted the Olympics anyway, and then won the bronze medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

Medaling was a bit of a surprise. Huntley barely made the U.S. team and was ranked 28th out of 31 high jumpers entering the competition. She came from behind, three times clearing personal bests, with the final one of 6-5½ earning her bronze.

After the medal presentation, she headed to "meet the press" in the interview area under the Los Angeles Coliseum but found it empty.

“I walked in one end, didn’t see a single person, and kept right on walking out the other end,” she said in an AP story published in the Statesman Journal. “You see, the Mary Decker thing had just happened … and everybody from the press was off on that story.”

Decker’s golden hopes ended when she took a controversial tumble near the end of the 3,000 meters,

Huntley took being shunned by the media in stride. She later pointed out she set three personal records that day and had not bettered 6-2¾ outdoors in nine years.

She was grateful for the snub, which allowed her to almost immediately join her parents and her husband John, whom she married in 1983. She had her medal with her and passed it around for everyone to see — not just her family, but all the fans sitting near them in the stands.

A month later, Huntley received a hero’s welcome in Sheridan.

Hundreds showed up at the high school football stadium to celebrate her accomplishments. The crowd gave her a standing ovation, with a tearful Huntley saying: “I don't know what to say except thanks.”

Officials presented her with a key to the city and one speaker said while Sheridan could not possibly equal the reception she received in larger cities, they welcomed her home “not because of the bronze (but) because of the gold in her heart.”

It was not the first time her hometown showed its support. Most of the town signed a telegram she received before the 1976 Olympics. One time, the town sent a marching band to meet her at the airport.

"That is the most amazing thing to have the support of an entire city," Huntley said, "and I felt it."

High school success launches Hall of Fame career

Huntley displays the bronze medal in a glass box in the pantry of her home, out of sight for visitors unless asked to retrieve the coffee or cereal. She and John live just outside of Newberg on 14 acres with horses, dogs and cats.

She continued to compete for a few years after the Olympics, even after having her first child in 1987. But trying to jump with a crying baby in the stands proved too much at a competition in California. Her daughter was 5 months old and could not be consoled even when her husband brought her down to the infield.

Huntley retired later that year.

After turning in her spikes, she worked on a master’s degree in education at Portland State University, where her husband was a professor. She previously earned a graduate certificate in gerontology from PSU and an undergraduate degree in physical education from Long Beach State.

Oregon State has always claimed her even though her time there was short. She was inducted into the OSU Athletics Hall of Fame (1988).

Huntley is in just about every hall of fame she is eligible for, including the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame (1990), the National High School Hall of Fame (2016), and the Pac-12 Hall of Honor (2020). She also was named to the 51-member Pac-12 All-Century Women’s Track & Field team (2016).

She and John are both retired. They have two daughters and two grandsons, ages 2 and 5, and will celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary in July.

Huntley, who will be 68 in August, loves gardening and raises carnivorous plants. John answered her cell phone when the Statesman Journal first reached out.

“She’s out in the field,” he said.

When Huntley returned the call, she said she had just come in from working on fencing in the pasture, appreciating the break to talk about her career, especially that record-setting day 50 years ago at the state championships.

Her 6-0 high jump is still a meet record in what is now 4A. She cleared 6-¾ before she finished high school, which still ranks No. 2 on Oregon's all-time list for girls.

“Everything was built on that,” Huntley said. “The success gets you more motivated to try harder and work harder, and actually opens more opportunities. High school was everything to me.

“Think about it, I was so young and jumping quite high for the American record and traveling the world as a high school student representing the United States. It was quite amazing. I think it was the most exciting time.”

Capi Lynn is a senior reporter for the Statesman Journal. Send comments, questions and tips to her at [email protected] , and follow her work on Twitter @CapiLynn and Facebook @CapiLynnSJ.

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