The tune to the Lake Highlands High School alma mater is that of an old Welch folk song, “All Through the Night”, but the origin of its words is decidedly closer to home. In 1960, Margaret Johnson [now Barnard], a seventh-grader at Lake Highlands Junior High, penned the now well-known verse, “Hail Lake Highlands, We salute thee, All through the years …”.
She entered her lyrics in a songwriting competition open to Lake Highlands students. “My band teacher, Mr. [Howard] Dunn told us about the contest, and I went home and, with the help of my older sister, wrote the words,” says Barnard, who played the clarinet in the LHJH band at the time. Her big sister, who attended high school in Richardson, never got any of the glory for her part in the creative process, Barnard says. (She jokes that she didn’t necessarily want recognition because “some people thought the words were dumb.”) Band director Dunn wrote the Alma Mater’s musical arrangement. It stuck. “I’m a little surprised it has lasted so long,” Barnard says. It was exciting, as a 13-year-old, to win the contest, she says, but adds that there wasn’t much competition. “I think maybe only two or three other students entered,” she says with a laugh. Today she lives in Illinois, but returns to Lake Highlands a couple times a year to visit her son.
