A living history of Lake County schools

LAKE COUNTY — Thirteen years and hundreds of personal interviews later, Joyce Decker Wegner’s dream has finally become a reality. Next week, the retired Lake County Superintendent of Schools and Flathead Reservation Area Historical Society President will have copies of her authored work, the 524 page “Lake County School History: Volume 1, Once in Missoula County: One Large District Becomes Many” on sale at various locations county-wide.

As county superintendent of schools, Wegner’s office contained files on every school that ever existed in Lake County.

“It was a history teacher’s dream,” she said. “My idea was ‘someday’ I’m going to write the history of the schools... someday.”

Someday came in 1997 when Wegner was invited to speak to a countywide group of retired teachers about the history of the one-and-two-room country schools. There, she put the plea out to the community, “I said, ‘I have the documents, you have the stories.’” Twenty five people from across the county showed up at that first May meeting and from it a core group was formed, assembling once a month for three years.

“Our original idea was just to do the country schools, but in working with them, part of their story was how they ended up consolidating — how they all became one,” Wegner said. “They interconnected too much.”

Thirteen years later, about 500 people, or “historians” as she calls them, have contributed in one way or another. Wegner added, “It’s been a massive project.”

Since Lake was actually one of the last counties formed in Montana, prior to 1923, students from Pablo and south were part of Missoula County, and students north of Pablo were under the Flathead County umbrella. As Wegner recounted each individual schools’ history, a theme began to unravel and the old county line formed a very natural break in the tale. What was happening in the north was almost directly opposite to what was happening in the south.

“In Missoula County, that one large district, Arlee No. 28, was breaking apart and becoming many,” she said. “In the north, many smaller districts like Valley View, District No. 35, Upper West Shore No. 33, and Salmon Prairie and Swan Lake No. 73, all became independent elementary schools and now students go to Polson or Bigfork.”

The first volume covers education prior to 1911 and chronicles the Arlee, St. Ignatius, Ronan and Charlo school districts up to today. Opening in 1857, the St. Ignatius Mission was actually the first school in the entire state of Montana, Wegner said. In 1900, when the government separated “church” and “state,” government agency schools were set up and Arlee School District was created in 1897 to serve the few nontribal people living there, Wegner said in the book’s introduction. That tiny district expanded into one vast district that for a time was the largest district in the United States.

According to Wegner, the Round Butte School, near Ronan, was the very first example of consolidation. Fairview, Mud Creek, Grand View and Hillside schools all closed their doors in 1916 when Round Butte opened.

“That’s so interesting because when the Ronan High School was built in 1930, the people in Round Butte were the most upset about being consolidated into the Ronan district,” she said. “Closing the school pretty much closed the community, but it was happening all over.”

Supported with hundreds of photographs, the book has truly been a collaborative effort and already 500 copies have been sold in pre-orders. By 2012, Wegner hopes to have Volume II printed, thus completing the history of Lake County’s Schools, except, not quite.

“Chapters include hundreds of stories; yet many stories remain unheard and untold,” Wegner said in the book’s introduction. “We collected what we could and shared what was given with gratitude and enthusiasm.”