Following a letter-writing campaign by students of the middle schools feeding into the future high school,[citation needed] in which reference was made to the character Princess Aurora in the 1959 film Sleeping Beauty, the District altered its proposed name to Columbia High School after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Immediately after Columbia's establishment, its Performing Arts Department initiated several activities.

The Drama Department has put on plays such as A Girl In The Mirror, Arsenic and Old Lace, and Snoopy, as well as musicals such as Grease and Hairspray.

Their shows include Latin Dances, Sound, Shape and Color, Second City Nights, Invincible, Signs, Relic, Persephone, Along Came a Spider, Mechanized, Light Prevails, Lost, The Prayer, and The Path Unseen.

Columbia competes in athletics in IHSAA Class 4A, the second highest classification, and are members of the Southern Idaho Conference (4A).