The consolidated Christian County High School won’t open for another 15 months but the school now has a modern Tiger mascot and colors to rally around, and it will soon have a new administrator.
Superintendent Chris Bentzel introduced the school’s branding and the choice for executive principal, Ken Carver, at a press conference Thursday in the district’s central office — while students at Hopkinsville and Christian County high schools watched a livestream of the announcements.
Across town, construction continues on the new school building at Fort Campbell Boulevard and Lovers Lane. It is slated to open in August 2026 with the combined enrollment of the district’s two public high schools and its vocational programs.
The school board voted in August 2023 to name the consolidated school Christian County High School — and to use Hopkinsville High’s Tiger mascot and take colors of blue and orange from both schools.
“It’s bringing two schools together,” said Bentzel. “It’s bringing our community together, it’s combining great traditions — I mean fantastic traditions I’m still learning about even though I’ve been in this community for over 20 years. We don’t want to forget those traditions. We want to set a new course, a new pathway forward for our students.”
Bentzel said students and school employees were involved in the lengthy process to settle on the style of Tiger mascot and other design elements. Several female high school students who helped make choices were present with T-shirts sporting one of the new logos, and the board room was decked out with blue and orange flags and other gear. All five school board members attended, along with several district employees.
The new Tiger design is a profile view of a big cat with its mouth open in a roar. A brief video shown at the news conference was punctuated with loud, aggressive growls and a warning to “fear the stripes.” This new mascot has an edgier vibe than the Tiger that has generally been used for decades at Hopkinsville High.
BSN Sports, a national sporting goods company based in Dallas that has several dozen school and university customers in Kentucky, is selling merchandise with the new school mascot and logos on its website. Prices range from about $20 for T-shirts to $58 for Nike-brand hoodies. Bentzel said the new school will eventually sell the merchandise on campus.
In his introduction of Carver, the superintendent described him as a “stand-up person,” adding, “I think we got one of the best in Western Kentucky.”
Carver has been the principal of Muhlenberg County High School for three years. He will start his job in Christian County this summer. His salary will be $110,000 for the first year, Bentzel told Hoptown Chronicle. However, the district will adjust the salary schedule to provide more compensation for an executive principal — the only one in the district — when the school opens, he said.
Muhlenberg County combined its two high schools in 2009 but it did not build a consolidated facility. Instead it divided the student body, using one existing campus for freshmen and sophomores and the other for juniors and seniors. Carver was a science teacher and coach in Muhlenberg County when the schools were combined, so he has experience with the reaction of students and community members to that kind of change.
“I’ve learned how important it is to include all stakeholders, to empower others, to empower your students, to empower your faculty members, to include your community members,” he said.
When a community has one high school, said Carver, “all eyes are on you … it is so important to really get that buy-in and create that ownership from all the stakeholders.”
The search committee that identified Carver for the position included Bentzel, Technology Director Jason Wilson and Assistant Superintendent Jessica Addison, who recently left the district to become superintendent in Todd County. Three community members — Ryan Milauskas, a banker, Wendell Lynch, former Hopkinsville mayor, and Rich Maddux, a public school advocate and former president and CEO of Propulsys — were also on the committee.
I don’t think you’ll find a man of higher quality than Ken Carver,” said Bentzel. “He’s going to make me better, he’s going to make our system better, he’s going to make people around him better. I can’t wait. I’m excited to go to work.”
Carver initially wasn’t interested in coming to Christian County, but he said the committee was persistent. He and his wife began see an opportunity after they visited the school under construction and spoke to district officials.
“I know this building is beautiful,” he said. “It is state of the art. It is going to be amazing, it’s going to be awesome … but the building is just the building. It’s about the people. It’s about the students. And that’s going to be my focus as executive principal of this district.”
The district estimates the school will have approximately 2,000 students when it opens in 2026. It will be structured with four academies, each of which will have its own principal.
Costing approximately $132 million, the school and its athletic facilities sit on an 87-acre campus. Opponents of consolidation still question whether losing the tradition of two high schools is the plan for the district.
At a groundbreaking ceremony in September 2023, Bentzel praised the decision to consolidate the two high schools. The district initially pursued plans to construct new buildings for Hopkinsville and Christian County, but voters overwhelming defeated a property “nickel tax” needed to fund two new schools. Then Bentzel and his staff began looking at a consolidation plan, which became more feasible when pandemic relief funds came into play.
Speaking at the groundbreaking, Bentzel said, “What truly makes this a historic day for Christian County Public Schools is the fact that this community and this school board made a decision that’s best for kids.
“Sometimes difficult decisions get lost in adult values, blown aside by political winds or halted by financial restraints. Not this time. This time we stood strong and held the line for our mission. We stood strong and stood firm by doing what is very best for kids. Today Christian County Public wins and puts students first.”
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
