Children at the Heart Mountain Internment Camp attended either elementary or secondary school providing them with a daily routine. In the first year, Heart Mountain High School educated more than 1,500 students. They had a band, clubs, social functions, and sports. On May 11, 1944, the high school graduated 302 students "...in the minds of every person there that night, particularly the graduates, there were memories ... of that fateful Sunday in December, 1941, which was the reason why they were graduating from a hastily constructed gymnasium auditorium with poor acoustics, rather than in velveteen-draped auditoriums with indirect lighting in California or Oregon or Washington." From "History of Heart Mountain High School" in the August 12, 1944 Heart Mountain Sentinel special edition.