46 I went to a school with about 300 per class, three classes, and a big auditorium. We had an all school awards assembly during the school day that was primarily for seniors (now and then an underclassman would win something big for music or debate). Like you, I remember sitting in the audience and thinking "could I do that?" when I heard the awards announced.
We were also fortunate enough to have a city paper that published all sorts of school news with pictures. Yes, it was a pretty small city, maybe 50K people, two high schools.