Daphne High School students returning to campus in the coming weeks will find two new faces greeting them: a new principal and a newly installed statue of the school’s Trojan mascot. Dr. Will Duncan is stepping into the principal’s role after several years leading Robertsdale Elementary School in Baldwin County. While the position is new to him, the campus is not. Duncan graduated from Daphne High School in 1993, and he says returning to lead his alma mater carries special meaning.
“I graduated from Daphne in 1993,” Duncan said. “I love to be able to serve Baldwin County, but coming back to Daphne is specifically special. I mean the chance to come back and give back to the community that was so good to me.” The move from an elementary school to the principal’s office of one of Baldwin County’s flagship high schools is a significant step, and Duncan arrives knowing the school’s traditions from the student side as well as the administrator’s. His tenure in Robertsdale gave him experience with the district’s younger students; Daphne High presents the other end of that arc, preparing teenagers for college, work and military service.
Just outside the school, a brand-new statue of a Trojan soldier now stands front and center, a nod to the mascot that has represented Daphne High School since it opened in 1989. The new statue replaces one that has long been a familiar landmark for generations of students, but Duncan wants the community to know that the original piece is not disappearing. The renovation of the campus entrance gave school leaders the opportunity to reconsider how the school presents itself to visitors, and the new figure is the most visible result.
The Original Trojan Finds a New Home
“I want to tell everybody that the statue is still here. We still have it. We have plans for it and the bricks that were around the old statue, and I’m glad that we’re going to be able to keep that part of history,” Duncan said. “We are going to be moving that and relocating it to the stadium area so it can be part of the tradition of Daphne as well.” The relocation ties the school’s past to its athletic present: the stadium is where the Trojan identity is renewed every Friday night in the fall, and placing the original statue there keeps it in view of the students, families and alumni who fill the stands.
Preserving the original statue near the stadium keeps it visible to students, athletes and alumni even as the campus entrance takes on a new look. School leaders have stressed that the bricks that surrounded the old statue will be saved as well, maintaining a piece of the campus that many graduates remember from their own student days. For alumni who return for reunions and homecoming games, the familiar figure in its new setting will serve as a bridge between the school they attended and the school current students walk into.
Daphne High opened in 1989 as Baldwin County’s growth shifted eastward out of Mobile, and the school has spent more than three decades building the traditions that newer campuses often take years to develop. The Trojan identity runs through its athletics, bands, academic programs and alumni networks, and the mascot statue became one of those shorthand symbols that says “Daphne” at a glance. Replacing a landmark is always a delicate undertaking in a community like this one, and Duncan’s message about preservation was aimed squarely at graduates who might have assumed the old statue was gone for good.
Traditions in a Growing County
School leaders in Baldwin County have increasingly leaned on these kinds of visual traditions — mascots, murals and monuments — to reinforce school identity as enrollment grows and campuses are updated. Baldwin County Public Schools is one of the largest and fastest-growing districts in Alabama, spanning communities from Bay Minette to Gulf Shores, and its campuses have been renovated and expanded repeatedly to keep pace. In that environment, a statue or a monument does more than decorate a lawn; it signals continuity to families whose children attend a school that looks different every few years.
Duncan’s own path illustrates the pull those traditions exert. A 1993 graduate, he built his career in Baldwin County schools before returning to the campus where he was a student. Administrators who return to lead their alma maters are uncommon enough that the story resonates in the community, and Duncan has made the connection explicit in his early remarks as principal. His familiarity with the school’s culture is an asset as he takes over a high school whose enrollment, programs and facilities have all changed substantially since he walked its halls.
The transition comes at a busy moment on the Baldwin County schools calendar. The district has been managing enrollment growth that has forced boundary adjustments and new construction across the county, and high school leadership changes draw particular attention from parents invested in athletic and academic programs. Duncan inherits a campus with established programs in academics, fine arts and athletics, and a student body drawn from Daphne and the surrounding communities along Mobile Bay’s eastern shore.
For Duncan, the start of the school year is about more than a title change or a new piece of statuary. It is a chance to reconnect with a community that shaped him, while making sure the school’s history stays intact for the students who will shape its future. “Once a Trojan, always a Trojan,” he said. The line doubles as a description of his own return — a graduate coming home to lead — and as a message to alumni who may have worried that the renovation would erase the landmarks they remember.
The new statue at the entrance and the original at the stadium will now bookend the campus, one greeting arrivals and the other anchoring the school’s game-day traditions. School officials have not announced a formal dedication date for either placement, but the work is expected to be complete as students return for the new year. Between the new principal’s arrival and the restored presence of the old Trojan, Daphne High’s message for the coming year is consistent: the school is moving forward without leaving its history behind.
Daphne itself provides the backdrop for the school’s identity. One of the oldest cities in Alabama, it sits on Mobile Bay’s eastern shore and has grown from a quiet bayside town into a suburb whose population has multiplied in recent decades. The high school serves a community that mixes longtime families — some with generations of Daphne graduates — with newcomers drawn by the city’s schools, its proximity to Mobile across the bay, and the jobs that have followed the growth along the Highway 98 and I-10 corridors. A campus that opened in 1989 now educates the grandchildren of its first students in some families.
That growth has shaped how the school approaches its own symbols. As campuses expand and old buildings come down, the objects that survive — cornerstones, trophies, statues, memorial bricks — become the physical record of a school’s history. Baldwin County schools that have undergone major renovations have increasingly made a point of salvaging and rehoming such artifacts, and Daphne’s decision to relocate the original Trojan statue and preserve its surrounding bricks follows that pattern. The message to students and alumni is that modernization and memory are not opposing forces.
The stadium relocation also carries a practical symbolism for the school’s athletic community. Friday night football in Daphne, as in towns across Alabama, functions as a civic gathering where the school’s identity is performed in front of the whole community — students, parents, alumni and neighbors. Placing the original Trojan where the crowds gather ensures that the school’s oldest mascot image remains part of its most visible tradition, seen by more people on a fall Friday night than the entrance statue would see in a month.
Duncan’s transition from Robertsdale Elementary to Daphne High also reflects the career pathways available within Baldwin County’s school system, one of the state’s largest employers. Administrators who move between elementary and secondary leadership bring perspectives from both ends of the K-12 span, and district officials have frequently rotated leaders across grade levels to build that breadth of experience. For the families of Robertsdale Elementary, the departure means a leadership change of their own as the school year begins, while Daphne High gains a principal whose Baldwin County roots run through both communities.
As opening day approaches, the school’s welcome for students will combine the new and the preserved: a new principal at the door, a new Trojan at the entrance, and the original watching from the stadium where Daphne’s traditions are renewed each week. It is, by design, a year that begins with continuity as much as change — a school telling its community that everything new about the campus rests on the history that made it.