Amana High School - Bugle Yearbook (Amana, IA)

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THE HISTORY O AIVIANA HIGH SCHOOL ALUIVI AS IT WAS For nearly a century after Amana Soclety settled m Iowa the oontnol of all economlc, soclal 1'e1lg10Ll.S and educauonal act1v1t1es reslded ln the leaders of the Amana Church Tlus group oonsxsted of thxrteen trustees selected from a large group of elders of the church Then' pnmary a1m was to promote and pre serve ln the1r members devotlon to rellglous obser vances prety and fa1thfulness ln the performance of the1r dunes To l1ve a llfe of devotnon to rehgxon, to practlce the spu'1t of brotherhood to have personal xntegrlty were regarded as far more Important than gettmg a lugh school educatxon The 00I1J1Ct10IlS of those m author1ty resulted ln dlscouragxng as much as poss1ble unnecessary contact wxth the outsnde world hlgh school about SIX? years later than most Iowa school dxstrlcts Thls former system of control somet1mes referred to as rehgxous communxsm came to an end ln 1.932 A modern cooperat1ve corporatlon was formed by a popular vote of all CIIIZCIIS Isolatlon was a th1ng of the past Thls was brought about by the lmpact of World War I and by the new age of electnomcs wlth nts 1n ventlons bnngmg men and races mto closer commum catxon As soon as thus break took place the young people of Amana began to attend hxgh schools III nelghbormg towns They attended 1n such numbers that It convmced the people of Amana that a hlgh school mould. have to be estabhshed ln thelr home oommumty In 1934 the Board of Educatlon passed a resolution to establlsh a hlgh school ln Mnddle Amana Only the frrst two years of mstructxon were to be given The re mauung years were to be taken m atdqoxnmg towns Amana was 1n a penod of transmon and the nat1on was 1n the mxdst of a senous depressxon. Tltus accounts for the boards -declslon to pl.'0V1d8 for on.ly twwo years of school J R Neveln of Manly, Iowa, was selected by the school board to be the nrst superlntendent Alvm Skow of West Branch was selected as hrs assxst an The fxrst day of the Amana High School was Sep tember 3 1934 Fourteen sophomores and mneteen freshmen ennolled at that tlme The sophomores had attended hxgh schools 1n nearby towns the prevlous year Before the end of the fxrst week fourteen Jumors 1n the new Amana Hrgh School Th1s was granted Another teacher Edle Brandt, was engaged to teach typmg muslc and some addxtnonal subJects The en t1re school equrpment conslsted of four rooms wlth a bare mlmmum of laboratory and 11brary supplles The total school budget was S10 000 00 Thls had to suffxce for payment of mltxal eqmpment operatlon, and salar1es of th1rteen teachers In sprte of numerous handlcaps the scholastxc reoord of Amana Hxgh School students compared very favorably w1th Iowa state averages Hxgh school graduates made superxor scho last1c records ln colleges and. 'I.II1iV6I'S1tl8S The dlsad vantage of an insufflclent number of teachers and lack of equlpment was more than compensated for by a spxnt of enthuslasm and adventure Fmanclal support for extracurrlcular actxvrtles could not be secured from school funds However these actxvltles were not . , . I , - . . . 1 tu . . . . . , . , . - I Y ' This accounts for the fact that Amana established a requested permission of the school hoard to enroll . - ' f a , ' . . .