Trickum Middle School

In 1975, a committee composed of two representatives from the Mountain Park Elementary PTA, Superintendent J.W. Benefield, Mr. Ed Lovin, and others chose the name for our school– Trickum Middle School– because of its close proximity to Five Forks Trickum Road. The name, “Trickum,” came from a store in the Mountain Park area known as Trickum Store because of the tricks that went on during bargaining with customers. The school was originally located at 948 Cole Drive. In the school’s first year of 1975–76, students selected the tiger as the mascot, and orange and black as the school colors. In 1994, the school colors were changed to orange and blue.

Upon opening, Trickum served 1,037 students and much of the geographic area of south central Gwinnett County. When the school opened, the commons building at Parkview High School had not been built, so students had to walk to Camp Creek Elementary for lunch. During the summer of 1976, Parkview High School was completed in the area directly adjoining the Trickum Middle facility. A commons area was designed to accommodate lunchroom and exploratory facilities for the middle school. Trickum Middle School has experienced many changes over the years. For example, during the summer of 1982, permanent walls and doors were placed between two of the four classrooms within a pod, replacing the “open classroom” of earlier years.  

In order to accommodate the growing population and to relieve overcrowding at Trickum, two other middle schools were constructed in the southern part of the county. Today, Trickum serves a much smaller geographic area than in 1975, but has a population of over 2,200 students. Two additions to the original building were constructed since 1975. However, after 30 years in the Cole Drive location and due to continued growth, a replacement facility was constructed and opened in August 2006. The new 241,350 square foot facility included 106 classrooms and cost $17,427,448 to construct. The original campus located at 948 Cole Drive was renovated and is now part of Parkview High School’s expanded facilities. Trickum is the only middle school serving the Parkview Cluster, which also consists of Parkview High School, Arcado, Camp Creek, Knight, and Mountain Park elementary schools.