Danville High School
Home of the Vikings
Main Phone: 217-444-1500
Address: 202 E. Fairchild / Danville, Il / 61832
Colors: Maroon (#671D32), Silver / Gray (#A2AAAD), and White (#FFFFFF)

Danville High School promotes school success and nurtures lifelong learners through RIGOR, RELEVANCE and RELATIONSHIPS.

According to individual potential, each student will:

• Read critically and with understanding
• Communicate effectively in speech and writing
• Understand natural phenomena, their causes and effects
• Solve problems efficiently using mathematics and logic
• Appreciate the past for its potential to improve the future
• Understand the rights and responsibilities of citizenship
• Develop skills and qualities that enhance employability
• Express themselves creatively and respond to the creative expression of others
• Treat others with empathy and respect
• Work cooperatively with others
• Exhibit personal fitness, both physical and emotional
• Set personal goals and develop plans to achieve them
• Recognize the need for new knowledge and be able to seek it

Danville High School was founded in 1870 with a staff of two. Today it is staffed by a faculty and support staff of 200, approximately 1400 students are served in grades 9-12. Students are offered a variety of courses and extracurricular activities as well as the latest technology. Music, sports, and extracurricular successes of the school are part of the DHS tradition. One of the more innovative and exciting developments in secondary education today is the school-within-a-school concept—small learning communities concentrating on specific learning community goals. These houses afford the students many benefits such as student-centered instruction, a concentrated curriculum designed to meet individual needs, and a more personal relationship with teachers. At DHS, we are fortunate to have our "houses" or small learning communities. 

Freshman House, focusing on a positive start to high school with additional opportunities for coursework and an emphasis on making good decisions early in a student’s career.

Danville New Tech High affiliated with the New Tech Network utilizing project-based learning.

The 1,300 students of Danville High School represent a diversity of interests and cultures, a strength throughout the Danville community. Enhancement activities include learning assistance programs for mainstreamed special education students, honors classes for gifted students, advanced placement (AP) classes, and ESL (English as a second language) classes. Technology advancements challenge Danville District 118 to balance computer equipment among the schools for use as teaching tools in the classroom.

• The school colors, maroon and white, were used as early as 1906, but no one remembers why these colors were chosen. When the Big 12 formed, the conference had to approve both Danville and Champaign having the same colors. Both schools were also known as the Maroons at that time.
  
  
• The DHS gym floor used to be positioned in the other direction (north to south). In 1939, the gym was enlarged and the bleachers were moved to the north and south walls. If you look carefully near where the old WDAN booth is located, a portion of the 1924 bleachers remain at the top of the section.
  
  
• DHS was first known as the Maroons, then for short periods of time, the basketball team was called the Silver Streaks. In 1960, DHS's nickname became the Vikings. An effort to change the colors from maroon and white to light blue and white in the 1960s was unsuccessful and the school returned to its original colors.
  
  
• Art Mathisen, DHS's long-time principal (1969 to 1980), was a member of the famed University of Illinois basketball team, the Whiz Kids, in the early 1940s.
  
  
• Beginning in the 1920s and continuing for several decades, tickets for all athletic events were printed by DHS students in the manual arts classes.
  
  
• Cotton Whitlock, Class of 1924, was the first DHS student to compete in the Olympics. His event was the decathlon in the 1928 Olympics.
  
  
• Odin, the Viking, and his trailer were purchased in 1971 by Coach Shebby and the athletic department for $3,000. Repainted in 2002, Odin currently holds court on the balcony in the gymnasium.
  
  
• The DHS Fight song was written in 1920 by Mr. G. W. Patrick, DHS band director. The words were composed by a committee chaired by Miss Gertrude Payne, teacher, and several students including Lucille and Lorene Esslinger, John Kieran, and others. They completed the words in one evening in 1921.
  
  
• The DHS Cheer Song has the same melody was Harry L. Watson's, "Khaki Bill's March," which was composed during World War I. DHS adapted the words of our cheer song to match those of Illinois Wesleyan University—the only difference being Danville High was substituted for Wesleyan and maroon and white took the place of green and white.