Rae Girls High School is a public girls’ boarding school in Gem Rae Sub location, Kisumu County where it was founded in 1972.
It was widely known for sending dozens of girls to national universities besides excelling in drama and music festivals. Girls enjoyed French and computer classes but they hated washing toilets as punishment.
Then there were its classy facilities which made the life comfortable and enjoyable: Tarmacked paths, tiled floors, an automatic stand-by generator and an incinerator which ensured there was no litter at ‘Raez’ as the school is nicknamed.
All girls had equal rights aboard ‘Kibrit’-the old 41-seater school bus which took the girls in light blue skirts and white blouses for ‘outings’.
‘Kibrit’- Luo for ‘Kiberiti’ or matchbox has since been replaced with a 67-seater nicknamed ‘The Raez.’
To date, the girls still make fun of Kibrit which is still alive and vrooming.
Notable alumni still guided by the motto ‘Heights above the Sky’ include; songbird Suzanna Owíyo who was a soloist at the school’s music club in the 1990s.
The 2002 Kora Award Nominee would later become one of the most accomplished afro-fusion musicians with hits like Kisumu 100, Gonya and Sandore, besides serving as Kenya’s UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador.
Then there is Madam Linet Pino Sati, the Principal Asumbi Girls High School and her counterpart at Kobura Girls, Damaris Nyinya and Jane Oyare Olago, the Assistant Dean of Students at the University of Nairobi, Mombasa-based lawyer Justice Anne Omollo and banker Florence Onyango.
Being a religious school, Rae Girls takes pride of producing two ladies who got married to two powerful Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) bishops.
Jenifer Wasonga is the wife to Bishop Joseph Wasonga of Diocese of Maseno West while Great Lakes University lecturer Alice Mwayi Abiero is the wife to Bishop Francis Mwayi Abiero of Diocese of Maseno South.
