[2] In 1911, the students built a biplane and on October 11, 1911 Harold Robinson piloted the plane and it crashed, killing a bystander, James Kinney.

When this proved to be too small of an amount of funding, voters rejected two additional bonds, leading to a student walk-out in 1957 in support of new facilities.

[5] The high school's graduation ceremonies had taken place that afternoon about three miles away on the Missouri Southern State University campus shortly before the tornado struck.

[10][11] On May 20, 2012, President Barack Obama addressed the JHS graduating class's commencement ceremony, held almost one year to the day of the deadly tornado.

Construction costs for the new 488,000 plus-square-foot facility designed by Corner Greer Associates of Joplin and the Overland Park, Kansas firm DLR Group, which includes a state of the art vocational technical center, are expected to be $120 million.

After three years in temporary campuses as a result of the 2011 tornado, Joplin High School opened at 2104 Indiana Ave. on September 2, 2014.