Ash Grove School, officially known as Dundy County District No. 9, was located 14 miles south of Wauneta near the present-day home of Don and Carey Harrison. At left, rural Ash Grove students are shown in a photo taken some time between the late 1880s, when the sod school house was built, and 1901, when it was replaced by a wooden structure. Classes were held at Ash Grove until 1958 when the district closed and joined Wauneta.

    By Tina Kitt
    The Wauneta Breeze
    
     Almost from the very beginning, when the first schools were opened across southwest Nebraska in the late 1880s, mergers and consolidations have been an ongoing part of the education process.
     At one time, especially around the turn of the 20th century, there were literally dozens of school districts in Chase County alone.
     One by one, as the number of farm families dwindled, transportation became less burdensome, and redistricting was implemented, these country schools closed and rural students joined youngsters in town.
     While several rural elementary schools - cozily housed in soddies and earthen dugouts - dotted the range around Wauneta, it wasn't until 1888 that an official school was established in Wauneta.
     Wauneta Breeze founder John Hann pushed editorially for a school in the growing community. In the Sept. 8, 1887, issue of the Breeze he wrote: "Someone ought to agitate the school question. It is high time we had some sort of an institution of learning, however small it might be. It is not expected that we can do anything stupendous just at the present, but something temporary ought to be done at once."
     That first official school term in Wauneta lasted less than four months, with about a dozen elementary age youngsters in attendance. Within 20 years, by 1917, the school system had grown to include 12th grade, allowing for full accreditation of Wauneta Rural High School.
     Over the next several decades, rural neighborhood schools like Grafield, Sunnyside, Calvert, Ash Grove, Eden, Zell and Blanche closed their doors. The brick building in Wauneta, built new in the 1920s, was added on to in order to accommodate the growing student body.
     In 1929 and again in 1932, extensive fire damage to the school house required major repairs and additional renovations.
     In 1951 the community voted to approve the construction of the gymnasium still in use today. After about a year of study, voters approved a $275,000 bond issue for the addition on a 280-104 vote.
     In the late 60s, according to old issues of the Breeze, Wauneta Rural High School was eliminated and merged with the grade school, known officially as District No. 31, to create a K-12 system in Wauneta.
     Like all small towns across Nebraska, a similar story can be told of the school in Palisade.
     According to "Hitchcock County History 1873-1989," the first school in the Palisade area was District No. 9. According to old maps, it was located east of the Bobtail Creek where the original settlement of Palisade was founded.
     In 1889, District No. 64 was established in Palisade, with numerous rural schools scattered across the countryside.
     The first ninth grade class graduated from Palisade in 1906. Gradually the curriculum was broadened, and more class levels added, including 12th grade. In 1916, Palisade saw students graduate from a four-year high school for the first time.
     The three-story school house still in use in Palisade today was built in 1925, after the old red brick school became too small to hold all the students. A shop building was added in 1926 and the auditorium was built in 1954.
     In 1957, Palisade Rural High School and the Palisade grade school reorganized as a single K-12 district, with 10 rural school districts in Hayes and Hitchcock counties also voting to join the new district, known officially as District 64J.
    
    Hamlet merges with Wauneta
     Kids from the Hamlet area joined with the Wauneta High School student body in 1943 after Hamlet patrons dealt with a series of challenges and setbacks.
     With the advent of World War II, explained Hamlet native Twyla Shoemaker of Lincoln, good teachers were in short supply. Teacher shortages were widely reported across the state in news accounts from the 1940s.
     Then something happened to the heating system at the Hamlet school, built around 1926-27, possibly due to a prank long attributed to some local boys. "We had some ornery, ornery boys," said Shoemaker.
     For a short time classes were held at a large house located near the Hamlet Church before the decision was made to send the Hamlet high school students to Wauneta.
     Shoemaker, who graduated from Wauneta High School in 1944, was one of the first Hamlet students to graduate from Wauneta.
     "That first semester was kinda tough, but by the second term we started fit right in," said Shoemaker, who credited the teaching staff with helping make the Hamlet students feel especially welcome.
     The switch from Central Time to Mountain Time was not a big issue, recalls Shoemaker, noting that those who lived on the west side of Hamlet's Main Street went by Mountain Time and those on the east, by Central Time. The official time zone line was located at McCook at that time.
     According to an Oct. 8, 1978, story in The Wauneta Breeze, Hamlet graduated high school students for a 12-year period, beginning with the Class of 1930. That year 14 students graduated from Hamlet High School, and over the next 12 years 144 students got their diplomas from the school.
     After deciding to send their high schoolers to Wauneta, Hamlet initially maintained its own elementary school before fully combining with Wauneta in 1968.
     During the 1968-69 school year, K-12 enrollment at the combined Wauneta and Hamlet school district hit 403. The Hamlet building was used for a junior high for Wauneta and Hamlet area sixth, seventh and eighth graders, with an enrollment of 80 junior high students reported at the Hamlet Attendance Center in September 1968.
     In the early 1970s the junior high was moved to Wauneta and the Hamlet building was used as a middle school for several years, before a junior high attendance center was re-established at Hamlet in the late 1970s. In 1979 the decision was made to close the school attendance center in Hamlet and the building was sold to the community, according to old Breeze reports.
    
    Wauneta-Palisade
    School District forms
     In the late 1980s, as the number of school-age children plummeted across the region at the height of yet another farm crisis, parents and patrons began to question how best to ensure an education for the children of their communities.
     In December 1989, the Palisade School Board and Superintendent Stan Kravig, facing declining enrollment, dwindling financial resources and minimum enrollment mandates from the state, sought to form an alliance with the Hayes Center and Trenton school districts.
     Following a reorganization study conducted by the State Department of Education and the University of Nebraska, the Palisade board offered a reorganization proposal to those two districts. Under the proposal, according to old news reports, one large K-12 district would have been formed from those three smaller districts, with a new 7-12 facility constructed at a central point between the three towns along Highway 6.
     When both Hayes Center and Trenton declined the proposal, Palisade pursued a possible cooperative agreement with them. After efforts to work out a cooperative sharing agreement with either Hayes Center or Trenton failed to materialize, the Palisade board inquired if Wauneta would be interested in a similar agreement.
     The Wauneta board, aware of the coming enrollment drops that would be seen in their own district as well, acted quickly on what they described as "an incredible opportunity for the two districts."
     At a special meeting of the Wauneta School Board on March 27, 1990, with approximately 120 patrons in attendance, the Wauneta board voted 5-0 to offer Palisade the option of contracting their students with Wauneta at a cost of $5,000 per student or entering into a cooperative agreement.
     Four days later, the Palisade board in turn voted 4-2 to accept the cooperative agreement, which called for Palisade's 16 high school students to attend classes in Wauneta. Wauneta junior high students joined Palisade junior high students in Palisade for afternoon classes. Both districts continued to maintain separate K-6 classes. The cooperative agreement was in effect from 1990-92.
     In 1991, board discussions turned from cooperative agreements to a merger between the two separate districts.
     In a survey poll conducted at a Palisade school meeting on June 4, 1991, residents were asked whether the school board should seek a merger with Wauneta or pursue other options. With 59 percent of the district's 436 eligible patrons on hand to voice their opinions, a clear signal was given to proceed with the merger. Of the 256 voters taking part in the unofficial survey, 173 said they favored seeking a merger with Wauneta, while 83 patrons favored exploring other opportunities.
     Those opposed to the merger said they wanted to wait until a vote was taken in May 1992 on plans for a county-wide district in Hitchcock County.
     A vote on how to proceed was not taken among patrons of the Wauneta district. Initially, school board members told patrons a district-wide election would be held in both districts for approval of the plan. Upon the advice of their consulting attorney, however, the decision was made to pursue the reorganization process as a board-to-board petition, making a public vote unnecessary for approval of the plan.
     While the results of the Palisade vote were not binding, they did help the Palisade board decide upon a direction to proceed. Later that month, the board was advised that time was of the essence in making a decision about the future of their school district.
     Attorney Greg Perry told them that a piece of legislation adopted near the end of the legislative session reduced the number of years that a high school can have an enrollment of less than 25 students from three years to two years. Palisade's enrollment was going to be under the 25-student limit for the second year during the 1991-92 school year.
     At a June 1991 meeting, the Palisade School Board formally approved merging with Wauneta on a 6-0 vote, effective beginning with the 1992-93 school year. In August of 1991, both school boards approved the petition to reorganize the two districts into one per a board-to-board petition.
     Following the Palisade board's vote to pursue the merger, a lawsuit was initiated by a Palisade patron against the Hitchcock County Superintendent of Schools, directing her to declare the Palisade school district a Class I (K-8) school district. In an effort to have the Palisade district stop all merger activity with Wauneta, it was contended that the previous agreement between the two districts was a contract and not a cooperative.
     Eight Palisade patrons stepped in as intervenors in the case asking the merger be allowed to proceed after a judge's earlier ruling that the Palisade school district could not act as its own intervenor
     In an October 1991 decision, District Judge Donald Rowlands handed down a ruling which allowed the merger process to continue.
     The reorganization plan was given final approval from reorganization committees in Chase and Hitchcock counties in October 1991, and became effective on Nov. 18, 1991, as Wauneta-Palisade School District No. 536.
    
    Wauneta-Palisade school district an evolving entity
     Wauneta-Palisade has been in existence for over 12 years, and continues to evolve to match the needs of the students with the resources of the patrons. Next week the Breeze will look at the changes the district has seen since forming in 1991.