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MICHAEL CANNINGThe first two in Florida, opened in 1915, were named after George Washington and Woodrow Wilson.
Opening in 1915, they were the first junior high schools in Florida. They were also dubbed "twin" schools because of their strikingly similar architecture.
Over time, George Washington Junior High's namesake became better known than Woodrow Wilson's. But they both led the country through difficult times.
Wilson was the 28th president, serving from 1913 to 1921. Born in 1856 in Staunton, Va., he dabbled in law before embarking on a noteworthy career as a professor and education reformer. Wilson was president of his alma mater Princeton University in 1910 when New Jersey's Democratic party asked him to run for governor.
Wilson agreed and won. He would go on to make conservative New Jersey one of the most progressive states in the union. His sweeping changes helped win him the nomination of the Democratic national convention in 1912, and later that year the relative political newcomer triumphed over a badly split Republican party.
As president, Wilson oversaw the establishment of the Federal Reserve, tariff reform, self-government in the Philippines and hostilities with Mexico. He kept the United States neutral for the first half of World War I but, by 1917, succumbed to the provocations of Germany and the public outcry for involvement.
Wilson proposed his famous Fourteen Points on European peace and negotiated an armistice in November 1918. One of his proposals, a controversial League of Nations, met strong domestic resistance. Wilson's strenuous campaigning for it led to a stroke in 1919, and he was bedridden for the rest of his presidency.
He lived a quiet life of retirement in Washington, D.C., until his death in 1924.
Today, Wilson's namesake school serves as a middle school on Swann Avenue in Hyde Park. Its "twin" school, Washington, sits abandoned at the junction of Interstates 4 and 275.
- Source: Hillsborough County School System, World Book Encyclopedia.