W. DALE NELSON Star-Tribune correspondent | Posted: Thursday, December 8, 2005 12:00 am
LARAMIE - When people hear that she graduated from high school in a class of nine, Misty Moore said, they sometimes laugh at her.
But Moore and fellow graduate students in Mary Humstone's historic preservation class at the University of Wyoming made a case Wednesday for saving old schools in the state's small towns.
When the high school in the Sheridan County town of Arvada closed in 1973, Moore said, the town had three bars, a thriving community hall and a crowded church.
Now, she told a community meeting here Wednesday, there is one small bar, the community center is in ruins, and four or five worshipers show up on a typical Sunday.
"Rural communities make up the foundation of Wyoming's heritage, and it starts with the small schools," said Moore, who lives in Clearmont, the nearest town to Arvada large enough have its population (115) listed on a state map.
The meeting was convened by Humstone and her students in an auditorium, flanked by historic murals on one side and towering windows on the other, of a former high school building that has been preserved and is now the Laramie Plains Civic Center.
Humstone, a research scientist in UW's American Studies program, said 22 Wyoming schools are on the National Register of Historic Places, and 60 more could be added. She and her students want the state's School Facilities Commission to make a survey to identify buildings more than 50 years old that should be preserved.
Since its creation in 2002, the commission's evaluations have resulted in closure of more than 30 schools. Humstone said about half of them have been demolished and dozens are threatened.
Most of the people who spoke supported the students' ideas.
"Let's not wait until the last kid walks out of the building," said Charles Lanham of the Cheyenne Historic Preservation Board. "The dialogue has to start now."
Brady Adams, also of Cheyenne, asked, "If a school can't be used as a school any more, why not put it to another use? Why tear it down?"
James "Bubba" Shivler, a retired architect who is director of the School Facilities Commission, was also receptive, although he disagrees with the group's contention that many of the school buildings have historic value.
"There are some buildings that are worth saving and some that are not," Shivler said. "We would rather not tear down a building. It costs the state money."
The meeting was moderated by Cheyenne attorney Alvin Weiderspahn, an adviser to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, who said the schools, particularly in small towns, "are much more than just schools" but serve as centers for the community.
Weiderspahn said the question sometimes arises whether "the town dies because the school went away" or the school because the town died out.
The preservationists objected to spacious schools being replaced by modular structures, but Shivler said the commission was not to blame for this.
"We don't believe in modulars," he said. "They are not safe, and they are not a great educational environment."
Star-Tribune correspondent W. Dale Nelson can be reached at wdnelson@bresnan.net.