BRIEF HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN

BRIEF HISTORY OF EDUCATION

SODA SPRINGS SCHOOL DISTRICT #150

The history of schools and education in Soda Springs cannot properly be written without including mention of schools and school districts now extinct but whose stories are inextricably woven into the school district we now have, District #150.

1870s - 1890s

In the spring of 1871, five families who were to become the first permanent settlers on the land now encompassed by present day Soda Springs, arrived in the area. Shortly after that date, began the long and arduous task of establishing an educational system. To the early pioneer, the education of his children came second only to those tasks, which were necessary to insure food and shelter for them.

There were few facilities and the only available places to hold school were in the homes of the settlers, which were crude, log structures with little heat or light. Textbooks and slates were in short supply and trained teachers were scarce. In those early days, Soda Springs consisted of "Lower Town" and "Upper Town" less than a mile apart. In Lower Town, school was held in the homes of Neils Anderson and Elias Eliason. This home school was continued for four succeeding years. School was also held in private homes in Upper Town, among which were the homes of Brigham Young and William Hooper. An early Welsh pioneer, Thomas Hopkins, was one of the earliest teachers in Upper Town with Him Francis being one of the earliest in Lower Town. His services were eventually shared by both "towns," by his teaching one week in one place and the next week in the other. One of the first imported teachers was probably Frank Riblett, a native of Illinois, who arrived in Soda Springs August 25, 1875, and taught the winter of 1875 - 1876. Other early imported teachers were put up from house to house and their board donated by parents of their pupils. Their salary was as low as three dollars per week and was often paid not in cash but in commodities.

The first and only school built in the lower district was built in 1880 and is still standing (1989), one of the few remaining buildings from that period in Soda Springs history. Among the teachers who taught at this school were Minnie Rose Horsley, Mrs. Tom Mercer, A. A. Patterson, Wilson G. Pike, and Ed Whitman. In 1882, the School Board, consisting of George Gorton, L. C. Eastman, and William Chester, made plans for a new school in Upper Town. Nine hundred dollars was raised and the school was built just west of the present grade school. (Hooper school on corner of Hooper and First East Streets.) This first school consisted of one room with meager furnishings. Later a small addition was built to accommodate the primary children. Two teachers were employed. It was about this time that the two communities united into one common school. Among the early teachers in this combined school were Fred Turner, George F. Gagon, Mr. Robinett, Mr. Feris, R. Elliott, Tom Nybert, Wilson G. Pike, Mrs. Elizabeth Crawford, Anna Barkdall, Blanche Marriott (Whitman), Rose Lau (Torgesen), and Charlotte Sperry.

1900s - 1920s

By 1900, the enrollment had grown to such proportions that two rooms were no longer adequate and a bond for ten thousand dollars to build a new building was passed with but one dissenting vote. The old building was sold to A.J. Knollin and was moved about two hundred feet west where Mr. Knollin added a wing to each side and converted it into a livery stable and barn. On the site where the old school had stood, a two-story, red brick school was completed in 1902, with two rooms on each floor. The members of the school board of trustees serving at that time were W. H, Chester, L. C. Eastman, and Daniel J. Lau with Minnie Horsley as Clerk.

Somewhere near this time, the school was graded under the supervision of Miss Charlotte Sperry. In 1911, Soda Springs was unanimously voted as Independent District #6 with James Strachan, W. E. Clifford, T H. Horsley, E. D. Whitman, L. S. Marriott, and Ed M. Merrell serving as the Board of Trustees. Just two years later, in 1913, a mass meeting responded favorably to the proposition to issue ten thousand dollars in bonds for an addition to the building to alleviate the crowded conditions, which already existed. This new addition consisted of a full-size basement, two classrooms, halls, a large auditorium, and a steam heating plant. The work was completed in 1914, with the upper floor serving as a high school and the lower floor for the primary grades. The auditorium, which was also upstairs, was used for all school functions, including playing basketball, and for assemblies. The Board of Education at that time included James Strachan, Mrs. Ida Kackley, T. H. Horsley, Mrs. Minnie Horsley, and J. E. Lau. O. H. Lovejoy was the principal of the new school.

In 1915, a bond was again passed to build a gymnasium at the back of and adjoining the existing building, bringing the total cost of the school to twenty-three thousand five hundred dollars.

To get the real "flavor" of those early days of education in Soda Springs and also to help us to realize the contrast between existing attitudes of then and now, we quote from a page of the very first yearbook published by the students of Soda Springs High School. The year was 1915, when all grades were housed in one building and the yearbook contained pictures and news of all the grades. The modest little book, paper-bound, and consisting of but 32 pages including business ads, was named The Crest. It contains a short history of the school, full of pride and gratitude for the educational opportunities that at last were being realized.

From the 1915 edition of The Crest:

"Never before in the history of southeastern Idaho were the prospects so bright for the education of our girls and boys as at present. Our enrollment is growing by leaps and bounds, and every week sees new pupils entering in the different grades. In the past, we must admit, Soda has had some pretty tough times of it in school matters. In the old days of exclusive sheep-herding the population was so transient that but few children succeeded in going to school the whole term, and could not accomplish much when they did put in the two or three months permitted them. In those days most of the money that goes to support the schools went into the gambling halls. Today, on the other hand, our town is fast becoming a city of splendid homes, where it is a real pleasure to live, raise and educate children.

"The children now have the best accommodations in our schools. They have sanitary drinking fountains, with water running night and day, furnished by reservoirs filled from eternal springs far up among the lava cliffs to the north. The schoolhouse is electric lighted and is equipped with, modern toilet accommodations in the basement. They have one of the best school auditoriums in this part of the state with stage and scenery. The building was constructed wisely so as to accommodate the increase of enrollment for several years to come. There are ample playgrounds for nice weather.

"During the passing year a number of new ideas have been introduced into our schools that were scarcely to be dreamed of before. Our auditorium was temporarily transformed into a fine gymnasium until the big new one can be constructed, where the boys and girls developed first-class basketball teams. All players were required to maintain high-grades of efficiency in their class before being allowed to play, thus raising the standards of our class work to the best in the state.

'The efficiency of the faculty, due to the paying of fair wages, the coming of new settlers, the new gymnasium and play room, the assurance of the four years of High School courses, and extra teaching force, the printing plant, and the promised tripling of the High School enrollment next year, the eventual establishing of a county seat at this place--all these things promise unlimited growth and prosperity to our High School"

In contrast to the fleet of buses to be seen almost everywhere transporting students to and from school and school activities in today's school system, the following is a quote from the bigger and better yearbook for the following year, 1916, when the size of the faculty had increased to eight teachers with four in the lower grades and four in the upper grades.

From the 1916 edition of The Crest:

"We mentioned last year the many new settlers that had begun to dot our broad valleys with homestead cabins, and make checkerboards of the one-time grass lands with the plow. Who would have thought even at that time what a wonderful influx of home seekers would even now be pouring into these parts? The settlers last year made it necessary to put on two school wagons to carry the children to school from the outlying districts. The three wagons provided by the Board of Education this year scarcely suffice to carry the pupils. Next year it may be necessary to make a further increase in number of wagons and another year will probably see wagons coming in from every direction loaded with the children of careful parents who wish their children to have more advantages than are possible with a one-teacher school in the country. We might add here that the pupils who come on the wagons make up for the most part the very best pupils of the school as they usually realize more deeply the purpose of school and its opportunities than their playmates who live in town. We believe that the school wagon has come to stay, and that all people will come to realize the absolute need of the grade school, and the impossibility of getting the best results from a school where one teacher must teach everything from the primary to the eighth grade."

The Superintendent and Principal of the High School in 1916 was 0. H. Lovejoy, and his faculty consisted of Selma Cloud, Loy Mumpower, Ada McGetrick, Ritha Lau, Alva Holmberg, and Helen Kramer.

Because of the difficulty of transporting students to a central location in the severe winters, many small, one-room schools employing one teacher dotted the landscape soon after settlers began arriving. At various times in the early history of Soda Springs and the surrounding area, there were schools located at Gray, Wayan, Bone, Eagle Creek, Herman, Davisville, Henry, Meadowville, Bailey Creek, Ten Mile Pass, Alexander, and Conda. Some of these schools were discontinued as parents began sending their children on the above-mentioned, school wagons to the bigger, more centrally located school in Soda Springs.

The 1916 edition of the High School yearbook boasted a "much larger High School this year with about forty members" with but five pupils in the tenth grade. However, by 1918, numbers had increased to the point where the Board of Education made plans for the building of a High School. Bonds totaling sixty-eight thousand dollars were issued and the initial part of the building was completed in December, 1919. This basic structure, located on the property now bordering Highway 30 and Third East in Soda Springs, served school needs until the gymnasium adjoining it was built and dedicated in 1937. Since that time as the need arose, several additions have been made to the original structure. In 1918-1919, Superintendent of Independent District #6 was Bertha Atkin.

In 1919, the Superintendent of Schools, W. E. Donahue, was killed in a car-train accident just as the school term began. Other early school principals have included O. H. Lovejoy, W. H. Wolfe, Jack Gronewald, Elmer E. Wilson, George Likeness, Morris D. Low, William H. Ward, T. E Thompson, Gertrude Freeman, Ezra Moore, Ronald J. Tippetts, Ellis L. Williams and, presently, Superintendent, Molly Stein.

1940s

What had been known as Independent School District #6 became Joint Class A School District #150 on September 13, 1948, when the following school districts were consolidated to form new District #150: Davisville, Henry, Wayan, Soda Springs, Meadowville, Bailey Creek and Ten Mile Pass, with Grays Lake, Alexander and Conda also affiliating with the new school district. In 1956, Idaho students living in Freedom and Tygee were added to the consolidation. Because of the distance involved in transporting them to Soda Springs, those children attended Wyoming schools with District #150 paying tuition for them. A similar situation was effected for those students who officially live in the adjoining county of Bear Lake but whose proximity was closer to Soda Springs.

1950s - 1960s

By the early 1950's, there was a pressing need for another grade school. School patrons passed a four-hundred-fifty thousand dollar bond issue of which approximately three hundred thousand was applied to build a new grade school just east of the old, two-story building, which had served the educational needs of grade school children for fifty years. Open house for the completed Hooper school was held December 4, 1952. The remaining one-hundred-fifty thousand dollar value of the bond was applied to build a new wing onto the High School, including additional classrooms when the building began to be used as a Junior High School, a cafeteria, rooms for shop classes, a bus garage and extensions for a home-economic department and a music room.

In 1958, the enrollment in the High School was 186 students, but with the establishment of a firm and expanding phosphate industry, Board members predicted increased numbers. Enrollment by 1967 of 367 students in the High School proved their prediction very accurate. In January 1959, the School Board proposed the passing of a bond of $600,000 to build a new High School on 20 acres in the northeast part of town. It was to contain 14 classrooms, gymnasium seating 1400 people, an auditorium seating 500, a music department, library, office facilities and a heating plant making a total of 48,000 to 50,000 square feet, the new and present High School was completed in 1960. The Board of Trustees at that time consisted of Howard E. Thirkill, Dr. Russell Tigert, Jr., Melvin Gill, Paul L. Tipton and Oscar Vias with J. F. Woodall as Clerk-Treasurer and Ronald J. Tippetts, Superintendent.

Student enrollment in the district continued to increase with the opening of several new fertilizer plants and other industrial expansion in the area. In just one year, from September 1964 to September 1965, district enrollment had jumped from 1078 to 1221. By January 1966, there were 1245 students. The peak enrollment at the High School was in 1978 with 430 students. The need had quickly arrived to build another elementary school. A bond election held in April 1966 was approved by school patrons in the amount of $409,000 to construct a new elementary school. Construction began in July 1966 and the new school, named after Howard E. Thirkill, a man long prominent in education, opened in September 1967. At that time the Board of Education consisted of George L. Atwood, Donald C. Smith, Leith Somsen, Wallace Johnson, Clarke Brown and J. F. Woodal as Clerk-Treasurer and Ellis Williams as Superintendent.

School Lunch

According to old-timers, the first hot lunch at school consisted of a container of soup made at home and brought to school and heated atop the pot-bellied stove used to heat the one-room school. Children often brought a sandwich and an apple carried in a lard pail complete with handle and lid. A concerted effort to feed all children at school was probably made with the inception of an early government-encouraged, hot-lunch program at school as early as 1935. Those simple meals costing the students but a few cents consisted of soup made by the mothers of the students who were affiliated with a parent-teacher group, the PTA. The earliest employees of a school-lunch program were the mothers of the students who took the job, not to become a "professional," but to earn a few extra dollars to supplement the family income. They loved children; they loved to cook and were good at it, and took pride in their work of pleasing the children with good food. However, as the government became more involved with feeding children, the program became more complicated with its attendant rules and regulations governing the use of government purchased commodities to be used in the program. There soon developed what was known as a 'Type A" meal pattern which was designed to be a balanced meal made up of foods from each of the four food groups known to be required to make a daily healthful diet. As the responsibilities of school-lunch workers increased, the wages also slowly increased along with the attendant requirements in training and following governmental guidelines until at the present time the program is a fairly complicated, regulated, government subsidized program which has become an important segment of the total educational picture in public schools. From the simple charge of a few cents per meal the price rose through various increments to 30 cents in 1959, and is now in 1989, being sold at prices ranging form 83 cents to $1.00 depending on the number of tickets purchased. A primary goal at the beginning of the program was to teach children to eat a variety of nutritious foods, but with the changing times and viewpoints, school lunch programs have, in order to keep solvent, been forced to give children what they will eat, which very largely consisted of fast foods. There is difficulty getting them to accept more nutritious foods such as vegetables. Among the women who have supervised the lunch program, from its simple beginnings to the rather-complicated program it is at present, have been Elaine Sibbett, Rita Delo, Marie Skinner, Phyllis Robbins, Helen Rae Larsen, and Janice Schvaneveldt. At first there were simple kitchens where simple meals were cooked; simple equipment and dishes and many other operations required in the kitchens were done by hand. Now District #150 enjoys the most modern and convenient appliances available in a shiny, new kitchen where meals are cooked centrally for about 800 children daily and transported to three other schools. Time and progress have made changes in every department and facet of education in District #150.

1980s - 1990s

With rapid growth expected in the 1980's, the administration was faced with both challenges and opportunities. Superintendent Lawrence Rigby and the Board consisting of Chairman Milt Gambles, Vaughn Francis, Robert Kempe, Earl Somsen and McGee Harris set about to bond for additional space while facing one of Southeast Idaho's worst financial depressions. To the community's credit, even in hard times, they voted extra taxes on themselves for the good of their children's education.

The Thirkill Elementary School added a new wing of six classrooms. A new central kitchen was added at Thirkill touting all the latest equipment. At the Soda Springs High School, a new wrestling room and a weight room were added. The gymnasium was enlarged to handle the increased attendance at athletic events.

The community, spearheaded by the newly formed Soda Springs Education Foundation, completely remodeled the football field. New bleachers were installed and high-powered, energy-efficient lights were placed on the field. Soda Springs High School had finally entered the modern sports era. The Principal during this growth was Gerald Jolley and the Athletic Director was Cleve Morgan,

During the 1980's, the Federal Government became acutely aware of America's dependency on foreign oil and her diminishing natural resources. The Federal Government made competitive grants available to schools if they would increase the efficiency of their operations. Superintendent Lawrence Rigby wrote and received nearly a million dollars in different grants. Every school in the District was remodeled and made energy efficient. At the Hooper Elementary School, a hot-water well was dug, and the school was heated entirely by a renewable energy source. The 1990's brought with it the celebration of the centennial of Idaho.

21st Century

Today, we find that the Soda Springs schools have come a long way since first started. We now have a modern school system with excellent buildings, an exceptional staff, and leadership from a forward-thinking school board and administration. The Board currently consists of Lynda Lee -Chairman, Jim Stoor -Vice Chairman, James Smith, Mark Dooley, and Alan Erickson with Max Hemmert-Clerk and Shauna Parkin-Treasurer.

The present Administration is comprised of Dr. Molly Stein - Superintendent, Doug Owen - Soda Springs High School Principal, Dr. Molly Stein - Caribou High School, Dr. Molly Stein - Tigert Middle School Principal, Bryan Jensen, Tigert Middle School Assistant Principal, Robert Daniel - Thirkill Elementary Principal. All celebrate our past, along with the State of Idaho, and look forward to a golden era in education.