Published: January 28, 2008 11:30 pm      

Closed schools not forgotten

Many schools felt the impact of 1960s consolidation efforts.

Long before the implementation of class basketball in Indiana, communities would gather in small towns across the state to cheer on the local teams.

For some communities that era disappeared in the 1960s when the Indiana General Assembly passed legislation requiring the consolidation of all school systems with less than 1,000 students.

A recent report on reducing the cost of government at the county level has recommended the consolidation of all school systems of less than 2,000 students.

The consolidation of 1963 has had a lasting impact on local communities. High schools in Galveston, Walton and Young America were merged into Southeastern School Corp. and became Lewis Cass High School.

High schools in Flora and Burlington were merged into Carroll High School while Sharpsville, Windfall and Prairie Township were combined to form Tri-Central High School.

The Galveston Cardinals are one of many team names now a footnote in Indiana history. Galveston Elementary School teams are still called the Cardinals.

“The town changed after that,” Galveston resident Gretta Smith said of the closing of the high school. “There was a closeness in the community because of the school.”

Smith graduated from Howard High School in 1947 with 12 other classmates.

“I loved going to a small school,” she said. “That was one of the reasons that we moved to Galveston. There is a family feeling to a small school.”

Smith said she was concerned about her three children during the transition period to a centralized school system.

“I’m still not happy with the school being in Walton,” she said. “If Galveston had not had a newer elementary school, everything would have been in Walton.”

Smith said the closing of the high school was a difficult time for the community, but it was the trend.

“Some people tried to fight it,” she recalled. “We went to school board meetings. It was a trend that couldn’t be stopped.”

Smith said the family was upset and considered selling their home and moving out of Galveston.

It was a big change for Smith’s children, who had to ride a bus to the junior high school in Onward and the high school in Walton.

“They probably got a better education,” Smith said of the consolidation, “but I thought I got a good education at Howard.”

Smith’s daughter, Debra Beheler, was attending Galveston Elementary School when the merger took place. She first attended Lincoln Township Elementary until the new school in Galveston opened in 1959.

“We had no choice,” she said. “I’m still mad. It was upsetting to us as kids.”

When the high school building was being demolished, Beheler recalled local kids were hired to clean the mortar off the bricks.

“We snuck into the school when it was being demolished,” she said. “Everyone was looking for something to remember the school.”