Bemidji High School is a public high school in Bemidji, Minnesota. The school is situated on a 260acre campus two miles (3 km) west of downtown Bemidji. The Mississippi River runs behind the high school. Constructed in 2000, Bemidji High School features, two gymnasiums, an outdoor track, state of the art auditorium, two wood shops, an auto shop, a machine shop, television studio, indoor swimming pool, over 50 classrooms, on campus Subway restaurant, miles of cross country running and skiing trails behind the building and two reverse projection screens in the commons of the school. On the campus, Bemidji High School also houses a hockey arena as well as a Bemidji Area Schools maintenance facility. Bemidji High School is the largest high school in the state in terms of square footage, and the largest in northern Minnesota in terms of student enrollment.The high school received fame when it was featured on Larry the Cable Guy's new show, Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy. The show put much emphasis on the fact that BHS is the only high school in the world to offer a Curling class.BHS was named a Silver Medal School by the US News this past year and ranked 29th out of 786 Minnesota high schools.ConstructionPrompted by aging facilities and an increasing student population, the district hired an architect to examine the district’s facility needs and develop solutions. The result is a new 392,000sqft high school on 260 heavily wooded acres bordered by the Mississippi River. The educational spaces are arranged in academic clusters, each featuring general-purpose classrooms, labs, spaces, a special project center and teacher planning centers. All student-service functions—attendance and assistant principal’s offices, Native American student center, counseling office, nurse’s office, student store and bank, food service, student council and media center—are accessible from the 12,500sqft, technology-rich student commons, which is the hub of the facility. Other features include a large-group room, an 1,100-seat auditorium, a black-box theater, a three-station field house and one-station auxiliary gymnasium, and an eight–lane swimming pool. The project was officially completed in April 2001.
