APEX—Matt Clifton has been named as the first athletic director at the new Apex Friendship High School, according to a report in the Raleigh News and Observer.

         Apex Friendship, which has been accepted into the membership of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, will open this fall with freshmen and sophomores and will be playing in the Southwest Wake Athletic Conference.

         Clifton has been serving as a physical education teacher and assistant football coach at Holly Springs High School, where he has been since it opened, and he was also the first athletic director at Holly Ridge Middle School. He previously had coached softball at Holly Springs as well and has also served at West Millbrook Middle and Green Hope High School.

         The school’s mascot and colors and have not yet been announced, and Wight indicated in the report in the paper that he would be working with a group of future Apex Friendship students in that area.