School Board member Rob Moxley was secretly buying and swapping 10,000 acres of farmland for Howard Research and Development to build Columbia, Maryland.

[1] To accommodate the rapid population growth in Howard County, school board member John E. Yingling and Moxley chose to purchase 35 acres of the John T. Leishear farm for $70,000 in 1965 reducing the amount of school property the Rouse Company would have to provide as part of an agreement to build the Columbia development.

[2][3] The school was designed by the Architect firm of Sandlass, Craycroft & Verkerke of Baltimore with construction bids received in 1970.

[4] By 1984, the school deployed 23 Apple IIe computers for students and tested sexual abuse curriculum on the 7th grade class of Hammond Middle.

[5][6] In 1988 Hammond Middle was renovated with a new gym roof and air conditioning retrofits.