Salmon Prairie celebrates a century of learning

SALMON PRAIRIE - "We talked the teacher into letting us go up in the attic to see if we could kill some of the pack rats that were always up there. She went along with us for awhile until she couldn't get us to come down. I made the mistake of telling my folks about what I was doing instead of my studies."

Karen Conley, a former student of Salmon Prairie Elementary School, told this story as it was recorded and published in the book, "Lake County School History, Vol. II' in the chapter on Swan Lake-Salmon Prairie District No. 73. This is just one of many memories shared by hundreds of individuals who had at one point walked through the doors of the one-room kindergarten through eighth grade schoolhouse.

Salmon Prairie Elementary recently celebrated its 100th anniversary following the graduation ceremony for eighth grader Cameron Lytle.

After the ceremony, current Supervising Teacher Holl Hubbard showed a slideshow presentation which contained information summarized from the book.

Former Lake County Superintendent Joyce Wegner and Lake County school historians collaboratively wrote the book. Wegner served in her position for 16 years from 1990 to 2006. She began her research for the book in 1992 and published it in 2012. There are nearly 2,000 copies in circulation.

Wegner estimated that she gathered information from around 50 people in the community. Unfortunately, she said around two thirds of the people she interviewed have passed.

"It's your stories but I had the pleasure of recording them," Wegner said. "To go out and get their stories was one of the joys of my career."

The Swan Valley was originally used by members of indigenous groups primarily the Pend'Oreille for hunting, fishing and gathering. Following the Forest Homestead Act of 1906, individuals began filing Homestead entries in 1911.

In 1920, settlers collaborated on building the original Salmon Prairie Schoolhouse on Carl Anderson's land. According to Missoula County records, the school began teaching students in the 1920-21 school year as part of Missoula County Swan School District No. 33. At the time teacher Gladys Olsen taught 15 students, many of whom were children of early settlers.

In 1930-31, Aileen Lehti taught four students for $900. Because of the Depression, her 1933-34 salary dropped to $585 and did not return to $900 until 1942. Teachers were forced to board with local residents until the log teacherage was built in 1934.

During the slideshow presentation, Conley and another Salmon Prairie graduate Dixie Meyer provided commentary and shared stories about their favorite experiences at the school. Some of Conley's favorite moments at the school took place during holidays like Valentine's Day, Easter and Christmas.

"Some of the big times were our Valentine's Party where we all make special Valentine's out of construction paper, whatever we had really" she said. "And then on Easter we find our hard boiled eggs up on a hill. Sometimes we find them a year or so later. And Christmas, that was really a big thing. ... I suppose about the time school started, women had a Women's Club and they would make pillowcases or handkerchiefs or all kinds of different things and then they'd have a bazaar and that way they'd make money for candy and goodies for Christmas. Then the other really big thing was the school picnic. We played games and had races."

Conley spoke about some of her favorite games like Antie-I-Over, hide and seek, kick the can, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, and baseball.

"[Baseball] was quite an important thing," she said. "And of course us little kids could never get big kids out but we tried anyway. In the wintertime we'd slide down the hill with our homemade skis or deer hides."

Meyer also had fond memories of her time in the schoolhouse.

"It was just a good experience," she said. "I thought it was really good for a one room school because you can refresh [lessons with the older kids]. ... [Younger] kids got big ears and so they get a lot more out of it being reviewed [by the older kids]."

Meyer graduated from Salmon Prairie in 1952 while Conley graduated in 1955. Both then went on to attend Missoula County High School, the only public high school in Missoula County at the time. For a bit they shared an apartment in Missoula provided by the high school. Wegner said that it was the longest school district bus ride in the nation at the time.

Conley and Florence Kirkwood were the last to graduate from the 35-year-old log schoolhouse.

In 1954, the community decided to construct a new white building to house the school. It was constructed by Reuben Kauffman and was in use by the 1955-56 school year. Jessie Murphy was the teacher.

Oil heat was added in 1956 and electricity became available to the building in 1957. The previous log building was heated by a cast iron stove.

Soon after a bathroom was installed in the school, they decided to burn the exterior outhouses. Former student Charleen Kesterson was quoted in the book as saying that this was "a bad idea because the power was out a lot."

In 1964, Conley and her husband Dale built a storage building near the school that would be later used as a classroom and library.

During the 1970s, the school board discussed the benefits and disadvantages of separating the district into Swan Lake School and Salmon Prairie School. They ultimately dropped the issue due to impracticality.

Salmon Prairie did experience a split in its classes, however, due to the larger school population of 23. The students were divided into upper and lower grades with one of the groups taking their classes in the newly converted shed. Other renovations included a floor, cloakroom and chimney.

The school saw its largest graduating class in 1977 with five students.

In the 1980s the classroom saw a couple notable figures visit their graduation ceremonies, one of which was Montana Governor Ted Schwinden in 1985 who landed in a helicopter in the school field. The other was fashion designer Liz Claiborne who visited in 1988. Claiborne owned a ranch in the area and visited often.

Wegner said one of her favorite memories as superintendent was when a teacher saw an underage student carrying multiple kids on a four-wheeler. The teacher was hesitant to reprimand the child because the owner of the vehicle was one of the school board trustees. Wegner then sent a letter to the board but to make it a positive outcome they decided to organize a safety course for the community.

In her book, Wegner said in the 2000s while the school retained its "individualistic character," it also experienced an increase in accreditation standards, declining enrollment and shrinking budgets. Federal testing for "No Child Left Behind" also required more professional expertise and collaboration.

Before, students in the area officially had to go to Bigfork High School. Those that went to Seeley-Swan High School had to pay tuition since they were not a part of that district. For years their tuition was paid for by Lake County, but tuition law changes forced Bigfork High School District to pay it instead.

This caused Bigfork No. 38 to pressure all District No. 73 elementary students to attend Bigfork High School. The community petitioned to pull elementary boundaries into Seeley-Swan High School. This led to a three-county transfer which was finalized in November 2006, the first boundary change since 1923. Today, most students in the area attend SSHS.

Hubbard became the supervising teacher in the 2005-06 school year. He came from Tennessee and did not attend the school as a student. One of his most notable memories at the school was experiencing a power outage during their Christmas program a few years ago.

"It's like the old times mixed with the new times, you know," he said. "We started throwing lanterns in and hanging lanterns up and powering up a generator just to have ... lights for the program."

He also recalls the school's pipes freezing in the winter and having the students shovel snow and insulate the pipes as part of PE and recess.

His favorite aspect of teaching is seeing his younger students begin the initial stages of communicating on their own.

"That first moment when a kindergartener or first grader starts putting together words where all of a sudden ... it kind of clicks and ... it starts to flow from there," he said. "Kids always want the answer. ... [And I'll say,]  'Okay, nope. I want you to struggle with it for a while.' ... And then as you struggle, you start to gain and grow in that and then all of a sudden, you figure it out yourself. And ... that grin on their face is usually with big eyeballs. ... I like those moments when they get that."

On average Hubbard teaches around four students a year. The biggest class size he had was nine students that spanned across all grade levels. The smallest class he had was with one student.

"[It] was a good year [and] a very intense year," he said. "We both agreed it was like wow, we're one on one, eight hours a day, all day, every day."

He has only ever had one student who attended the school for the entirety of his or her elementary education.

"That's a very unique relationship with a student," he said. "And then to see that student excel in high school that just stands out. Because that relationship with a student [is] more than one year, you're that much closer to them."

Hubbard said the one-room structure allows him more flexibility to create individualized learning experiences for students if they are struggling in a particular subject.

"I can look at a student when they come in ... and I can say, 'Okay, you're somewhere between second and third grade. You're maybe behind here, you're maybe ahead here, but I know where I want you to be by the time you're in eighth grade,'" he said. "So instead of saying, 'Hey you know what, let's pull you back to second grade,' I can stretch that out and pull them along just with the individualized work."

Wegner said during her first year as superintendent she was unsure if schools like Salmon Prairie would survive, but over the years it managed to stay sturdy.

"It was exciting to see what one-on-one teaching could do with the students," she said. "And it was always a great school if we had great teachers. The years that we didn't have such good teachers, it was a little rough for some of the students."

Fortunately, as time passed and technology improved, it became easier for students to receive a more comprehensive education through the internet even if their teacher was not particularly knowledgeable in a specific subject.

"They can have a speaker from Russia if they want to," she said. "They've got the best of both worlds here. They've got the rural setting, ... the commitment of the small community that's here and they have a small teacher to student ratio that works really well for them."

She said the main downsides of the school's small population are that the students have to make arrangements with outside schools to participate in sports and they have less overall classmates to interact with.

Hubbard said it is essential to keep the school running because it acts as a functional center for the community.

"Looking at this [graduation] event, I'm not sure how many people are [here but] there [are dozens of] people that care about this school and care about the kids in this school," he said. "I think that's the only way it stayed open 100 years. This community has fought to keep the school open."

Meyers not only attended the school for her entire elementary education but so did three of her children and three of her grandchildren. She believes there is a misunderstood stigma about the quality of education being provided at the school.

"There's been lots of kids that graduated from this one-room school [that] went on to do great things," she said. "Everybody says, 'One-room school? You're not going anywhere,' but we've had some really good kids come out here."

**Editor's Note: This story was edited from its original version to more accurately reflect the settlement of the Swan Valley.