Lorraine High School - Yearbook (Lorraine, KS)

Page 8 text:

Dedication To the graduates of Lorraine Union and Rural High Schools this work is sincerely dedicated. Acknowledgments Much time, thought, perserverance, and searching went into the preparation of this yearbook. Hundreds of individuals were called upon to write a letter or make a call, to supply a picture or recall a name, to make an inquiry or to submit data. Each worked with enthusiasm. Vernon Splitter, who copied hundreds of photographs, and Margie Schmidt, who planned and assembled this yearbook, are to be commended for their roles in making this pictorial work possible.

Page 7 text:

Your High School . . . In Retrospect Foreword when one endeavors to write a historical account of the life of a school, he encounters many interesting facets of school life its beam of light direction. --each casting in a different Exploring each but it is even of these facets is difficult, more difficult ' to synthesize them into one account in the form of a yearbook because they reflect different values, different standards, different backgrounds, different The account that follows has been authenticated through school attendance registers, permanent high school records, records of boards of education, county teacher registers, school directories, newspaper articles, programs, and other historical records and accounts. It is hoped that as you view this spectrum of school life you will recall the memorable moments of yesteryear, for this is your high school in retrospect. 12831255

Page 9 text:

O. School Hlstor The big white frame building of the first consolidated school in Kansas will never stand as a tourist attraction as does the little red schoolhouse moved from this state to Knott's Berry Farm in California. The principal reason is that the local citizens were too busy mak- ing history to be concerned with the preservation of a building. However, records of the event were preserved in books, letters, pictures, historical societies, and in the minds and hearts of those individuals who sought and worked for better schools during the last quarter of the past century. One such individual was H. L. Steinberg, who, when asked about the con- solidation several years later, said, My own experiences as a schoolboy were, to a great degree, responsible for the interest with which I worked for the organization of the Lorraine Union School . ' LORRAINE UNION SCHOOL ORGANIZED Steinberg knew the one-room rural school well, for he attended one and taught in two in Minnesota before coming to Kansas where he served on the board of yet another. He knew their inadequacies- the lack of plan- ning, heat, d i s c ip l ine , facilities, and teacher preparation. His own advanced educa- tion, totaling less than two years, was obtained at an academy in Monee, Illinois, where Professor E. Janzen was principal. In the spring of 1877 Steinberg came to Kansas and bought a tract of land about one mile northeast of what is now Lorraine. The first school in this district, Steinberg said, was a sod building on the northeast corner of the land we oc- ,Q e 7 cupied. L at er a fone- I roomj frame building was erected on the north side of the road, where the school work of that dis- trict was carried on un- til the year 1898. It was my privilege to have been a member of the school board during all those years. In this capacity it was possible for me to gain further . . . knowl- edge of the one-room school . . . Land itj caused me to think of ways and means of remedy- ing the difficulties in which we were constantly involved. 'k A magazine article telling of a consoli- dation of schools in Ohio was brought to the attention of Steinberg and others, and the idea of consolidating the schools of Green Garden Township was conceived. Informal dis- cussions followed, and it was generally agreed that such a consolidation would be educationally sound and that the town of Lorraine should be the site of any proposed school building. Several interested persons, including Steinberg, went to Ellsworth and discussed the idea of consolidation with Edward T. Fairchild, the county superinten- dent. Fairchild liked the idea and went to Topeka where he sought the'introduction of a bill making it legal to consolidate school districts. The legislature passed such a bill in 1897. i,?'ii5i3i. LORRAINE UNION SCHOOL - Organized June 8, 1898 First Consolidated School in Kansas fQuotations are from a paper prepared for the Kansas State Historical Society by Mrs. Paul Peters, Jr., who, in 1942, interviewed H. L. Steinberg, then 87, about the school consolida- tion of 1898. 1