Hardin High School - Big Horn Yearbook (Hardin, MT)

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THE BIG HORN ANNUAL THE SCHOOL BOARD, DISTRICT 17H . These are the men behind the pun in Distinct 17 II. As a board they are responsible for the one-hundred thousand dollar high school buikbng. the splend-did monument to the forward-looking mind of the community. As individuals tl'.csc men are broad-minded, progressive, and intensely interosted in the upbuilding of the community in nil its broadest interests. Mr. T. C. Smith, the chairman, is scr ing the people in his seventh year. lie is a careful, 1 usinesslike man who keeps his car well to the people and interprets their desire into actual conditions in the school organization. Nils Ottun has served almost as long, and so has R. A. Vickers. The fact that the L= THOMAS C. SMITH CliAirnuin people return these men to the same office when other able men are out for the ofTice r. peaks volumes in their favor. J. J. i ing adds his optimism and ir.cd rn ideas next, while last comes the honorable C. II. As bury, f u c. intendent oi the Crow Reservation. 'Ibis quintet maker, r. hoard of well I al-ance1 r.liil;,, which assures the pco 'c cf the district good man;;.;.meat. F. D. Tannc , the outgoing Clerk, has served the district thru its pioneer days ith devotion and almost heroic rnsclfi hncss, while Harry G. Rogers, the present clerk, comes to the position with college training and several years of school experience. They, rre the men behind. HARRY G. ROGERS Clerk FRANKLIN D. Former Clerk - Three —

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 •••• THE BIG HORN ANNUAL

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THE BIG HORN ANNUAL SUPERINTENDENT S. K. LOGAN Hardin School District, No. 17H Hardin District 1711 is of the second class and spreads over approximately 4,000 square miles. It is larger than the state of Rhode Island, and, because of its wonderful soil and of its most extraordinary water power potential, it may some day exceed that state in population as much as it does in size. Traversing it are two of the most fertile valleys known, the Big Horn and the Little Big Horn, in addition to numerous smaller tributary valleys of equal quality. As the Crow Indian reservation, which until last year had escaped large scale white settlement. comprises more than three-fourths of the total area, the population is still relatively meagre, and agricultural development is just well stalled. The great stretches of bench hare been used chiefly to graze hundreds ol thousands of cattle, while the bottom lands are producing hundreds of thousands of tons of feed. The sugar beet industry is well established, and the alfalfa on a single farm has been known to pay the entire cost oi the farm at more than $100.00 per acre. Already many train loads of wheat, forage. and alfalfa and sweet clover seed arc being produced on the unirrigated land. Now that the sale of Indian lands is to be facilitated by the hill which has just passed congress, and the construction, of a railroad up the Big Horn and ot the great dam—to irrigate an additional hundred thousand acres—is assured, the populat ion and wealth ot District 1711 arc sure to double and double again and again with amazing rapidity. Tlu school management is conscious of its responsibility for the erection ot such a school system as will fit this developing empire. With such conditions, immediate and prospective. it is proposed to maintain school facilities of such uniform excellence throughout us has never boon known in rural sections in the various stages of development. Given the vision and the ambition so to do. in fifteen years Hardin District 17H can command the attention and emulation of the entire country tor unprecedented achievement in creating and extending educational opportunity. How can this be so? By large scale co-operation. Large scale co-operation can do anything, even the seemingly im-]x ssible, and do it quickly. The measure of results in co-operation is the extent of co-opera-tion. The Montana Farming Corporation through a form of co-operation is able to turn over hundreds of acres of virgin sod in a day. Individual fanners of tlu irrigated states, by helping one another, in spite ot labor shortage and an inadequate capital margin, of adverse moods oi nature, and of the pestiferous profiteer, have been able to hang on, nd in the time ol the world’s desperate hunger, have actually broken all records ol production. Large scale co-operation in our educational field is made possible, even easy, by the fact that this lout thousand square miles ot human and natural resources are organized as one big school district. We arc pooling our educational resources in an immense and potentially wealthy area; we may pursue a continuous policy which is correspondingly 1 ig. Large scale co-oi eration, assured by the size and unitv of the district, motivated by the distinctively American ideal of the lullest possible opportunity to all, has no visible limits. It it worth while tc compare with the achievements oi the oldest and wealthiest counties what this new country has already been able to do under its large scale type of organization. In such counties there are still relatively small districts which have much less than nine months of school, in shacks or cabins more suitable tor stock than for children, with little suitable equipment, immature and inadequately trained teachers, no supervision, and apparently no one to care. In Lewis and Clarke county, in the Sun River valley the progressive people have painfully gathered together again the various small districts which were at one time one district in order that they may enjoy such advantages jus we enjoy by virtue of being a large district, with a head, and a high degree of equality of educational oppor-tuntiy. There are comparatively few children in all of our 4.- 000 square miles who do not have, under the kind of specialized supervision which has contributed to the high standard 01 large city systems, nine — Four —