city, until the opening of Kenyon Field (now Lethbridge County Airport) south of Six-Mile Coulee in the summer of 1939. Construction of the school at the site finished in October 1928, but a fire in the spring of 1929 ravaged the new building. Classes had to be moved to other local schools until later that year. When LCI became too small for the city's growing population in 1950, a new building was constructed on the same block just east of the old one. Due to southern Alberta's booming population, twenty-one schools were constructed in Lethbridge between 1946 and 1965. Grades 10–12 were moved to the new building while grades 7–9 remained at their present location. The new junior high was renamed Lethbridge Junior High School, but kept the name for less than a year. In the latter part of 1950, the junior high adopted its new name, Hamilton Junior High School (named after a former teacher, principal, and superintendent, William Alfred Hamilton). The school kept the name for over half a century until its relocation to the rapidly expanding area of West Lethbridge as G.S. Lakie Middle School in 2003. Next door, classes commenced on November 22, 1950 at the new LCI. With increases in student population, new sections of the building were added in 1955, 1957, 1970, and 1986. Today, a section of Hamilton's old building houses Allan Watson High School. While the high school is not operated by district 51, the building is also being renovated to house the headquarters of Lethbridge School District 51. A new grade In accordance with a grade reconfiguration in many public schools across Alberta, Grade 9 students began attending the school in the fall of 2003. Teachers, textbooks, and other classroom materials were brought in from local middle schools. The changes introduced a new term to the area: "middle school". With the middle school enrolling students for grades 6–8, the term "high school" was redefined to include grades 9–12. The changes created minor inconveniences for staff and other areas of the school. At LCI, it brought more students into a building already near capacity. Community members believed the restructuring by the government was targeted specifically at the City of Lethbridge, a move made to force the province to build an additional Lethbridge high school. Such a project had been anticipated for at least a decade. As expected, the announcement for the new