JEFFERSON COUNTY — Nick Cummings remembers the first two years of in the fall of 1996 in the shadows of the eponymous Jefferson County hogback near C-470 and Bowles Avenue.
The school was built to ease the burden on Chatfield High School, which had gone to a split schedule to have enough space for all its students.
Cummings was in the first class to graduate in the spring of 1998, went to college to get an education degree and found himself back at Dakota Ridge four years later teaching math. He’s been there ever since.
“As exciting as it was to start traditions as a student, to carry those on as a teacher has been awesome,” Cummings said. “I love Dakota Ridge.”
Dakota Ridge High School is celebrating its 20th year. The school has several teachers who started when the school opened and former students now teaching there.
Principal Jim Jelinek said it’s an exciting year for him and the staff, getting to talk to alums and the original principal, Ray Smith.
“We just continue to build on their shoulders,” Jelenik said. “I love having this opportunity.”
One of those original teachers is head football coach and PE teacher Ron Woitalewicz.
“I look back and think when the school opened, we had closed campus because there was nowhere for the kids to go and eat,” he said.
Woitalewicz was an assistant football coach in the fall of 1996 and remembers the team losing the first two games by a combined score of 93-0. Two weeks later, the team became the first ever to win its inaugural Jeffco League game and the next season it was league champion.
Sports have been a big part of forming the culture at Dakota Ridge, and the school saw a lot of success early on, but some teachers feel Dakota Ridge really became a home when Jelinek arrived as principal 11 years ago.
“When we came in, there was a distinct ideal for the school that was never truly brought to fruition,” English teacher Mark Sherman said. “Jelinek came with his own vision and a desire to implement that vision, and he’s done some great things with it.”
The school had seven principals — including interims — in its first five years. The school’s original teachers who remain credit Jelinek as a stabilizing force that has taken the school to higher levels academically.
He also helped establish the culture of the Dakota Ridge area surrounding the school.
“It didn’t really feel like Dakota until Jim came,” said family consumer science teacher Betty Hustead.
Jelinek said he quickly realized the school was a community center for the surrounding area in a part of unincorporated Jefferson County that has had a growth boom in the past 10 years.
The school has grown with the surrounding community. With 900 students the first year, Dakota Ridge now has just under 1,600 students and competes in the 5A class for all activities except football and marching band.
While the growth is seen as positive, economics and psychology teacher Dennis Majewski remembers that when the first few classes walked across the stage at graduation, he knew every student. That’s no longer possible.
“I miss that part where I knew everybody,” he said.
Current students have also taken part in the anniversary year.
Senior Joe Berg said it’s been interesting to hear how the school formed and see old photos of what was around when the school was built.
He said: “I thought it was cool to see the history of something that’s been there my whole life, and see and talk to people who have been there through that process.”
Joe Vaccarelli: 303-954-2396, jvaccarelli@denverpost.com or @joe_vacc
