Final Chapter

Every May for the past 60 years this prairie, with blue spider-wort, white daisies and yellow cone flowers has seen another Appanoose class graduate from the Gym of the 1934 building. In May of 1995, the last class graduated from that building.

In September, 1995, the final stage of the building at Appanoose was completed at a cost of $l,040,000.00. The new addition has class rooms for 6th, both 7th grades, and the 8th grade, a band and music room and a room for the Counselor. Finally we have all our pupils (over 220) in one convenient building. The 1934 building will continue to stand as a landmark and will be used for art classes, basketball practice, conference rooms, a new Latch Key program, storage and other needs. Everyone is most excited about the long awaited and much needed auditorium and gym with dressing rooms and concession stand. "Awesome" is the way the students describe the gym. At last we have ample seating room for our music programs, basketball games and graduations to be held at our own school instead of Pomona. The gym built in 1934 had become as inadequate as "the hole" built in 1919.

The final building project is complete, for now it is sufficient for our needs, no one can know how long this will suffice. In 1875 there were 3,997 school age children on the census, children from age 4 to 20. (I presume this only included single men and women. School was not compulsory.) Today there is an enrollment of approximately 4,720 students in Franklin County schools. (Age 5 to high school graduation. School is compulsory from age 6 to 16.) Appanoose District first covered 30 square miles and today we serve 110 square miles.

We have all heard the old adage, "the more things change - the more they stay the same". To prove that, I remind you that in 1919 the first principal, and only teacher, was a lady, Mrs. Odena Detwiler. During the next 75 years the administrators were men but by 1994-95 we have come full circle and the principal again is a lady, Mrs. Karla Green. Mrs. Green's staff includes a secretary, 14 class room teachers, band and vocal music instructors, counselor, librarian, computer aide, bilingual aide, 2 cooks, 2 janitors and 5 bus drivers. Also on a part time basis we have a school nurse, computer consultant, social worker and an art teacher. The Tri Lakes Edutcation Co-op supplies us with a full time learning disabilities teacher with 2 aides, an aide for a handicapped student and as part time instructors a speech pathologist, occupational and physical therapists, psychologist, gifted instructor and behavioral disorder consultant.

Education in West Franklin District #287 has grown from one room log schools with one teacher for all grades teaching all subjects, using slates and very few books to multi-million dollar buildings with computer labs, audio-visual aids, thousands of library books and specialized teaching with no more than 26 students per class room, each teacher teaching core subjects and music, P.E., etc. taught by the respective teachers.



The final chapter of this story is finished but this is not the end of Appanoose history for it will continue to change as everything must. One thing remains constant, Appanoose was a serene, abundant and beautiful land for the Indians, a good place to call home. Appanoose offered productive and rich farm ground for the pioneers, a good place to homestead. Appanoose is still a beautiful and productive place to live and AGS, as always, continues to offer the best in education.

Education requirements constantly change, but this prairie, (where Appanoose started in a borrowed classroom in the church) one of the few unbroken pieces of ground in the area, remains the same as it did 150 years ago when Chief Appanoose stood here, the same as it did 10,000 years ago when primitive Indians farmed the valley, the same as when the 3-toed horse and giant mammoth grazed it centuries earlier. Civilizations come and go, cultures change, each leaving behind fragment artifacts to prove their existance. From Indians on foot to rockets on the moon - only the unbroken prairie remains the same. White cumulus clouds drift in the blue sky while the red-tailed hawk circles overhead searching for a meal.

  • The Class of 1949
  • The Class of 1948
  • 1948 B-Team Champs
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