District: No. 8 or 69
Location Relative to Con. 8: 2.0 miles East, 0.5 mile South
Year of District Formation: 1901-1902
Teachers
None Listed
Principal
None Listed
School Board
Probably T. B. (Tom) Locke
Building
None Listed
The various historical reports are sketchy and uncertain about this district, and I have very little from the memories of the old timers except for the location of the school on which Ruby Heien1 and Velma McFarland2,3 have been very definite as well as in agreement. Balyeat4,5and also the study, Rural Schools of Southwest Oklahoma6tend to identify it totally with Con. 8 and assign the district number 8 to it. The last of these gives the location as that of Con. 8.
I have been able to find no direct evidence for the district number. In most other cases, these low numbers seem to have been used initially for school districts in the platted towns, and it seems anomalous for this low number to appear for a school in this rather remote location. I have thought it likely that the Original District Number was 69. This number is between that of Gladson and Olive Branch. In support of this, it is noteworthy that the three adjacent school districts to the south lying on an east west line are Lick Skillet – 79, Mullins – 80 and Shiloh – 81. I have concluded provisionally from careful study of Balyeat’s summary of records of Kiowa County districts, that as consolidations occurred, an effort was made to assign the lowest possible district numbers to the consolidated district. Balyeat lists Frisco (near Hobart) as district No. 69. It seems very reasonable that in 1910, Frisco had the designation No. 8, and this number was reassigned to Consolidated 8, with 69, the lowest number freed by the consolidation, assigned to Frisco. However, there is also no direct evidence for this scenario. This business is further complicated by the existence of Swanson County from August 1910 to July 1911, in which the new consolidated district was established by July as Con. 2. I think Snyder, would have been Con. 1 in Swanson County as Mountain Park did not consolidate until many years later. For a few months all the school districts in Swanson county might have had different numbers but in any case they seem to have returned to the old numbers when Swanson was dissolved. In the case of Con. 8, the progress in organization was accepted when it moved back to Kiowa County and became Con. 8.
Sources
1. Maggie Lee (Barnes) Walker provided a copy of a manuscript written by Ruby (Burton) Heien. An annotation gives the date as 1988. LaNell (DeWees) Frick has told me that Ruby wrote several. This, I suppose, is probably the latest.
2. I have four printings of brief Con. 8 School Histories that were distributed at Reunions. One of these is undated, and I think was distributed at the 1979 reunion. It mentions Velma McFarland as the author, or the source.
3. I have two printings of a history which includes contributions from Velma McFarland and Blanche McClure. Both appear under the Student Review masthead with the date July 4, 1981. The later printing was distributed at some other reunion that I was able to attend and refers to it being written at an earlier date. I think that Kinley McClure edited the 1981 version or knows who did. I plan to inquire.
4. Pioneering in Kiowa County, v 6, pg 18. This reference refers to the pages 18-39 of that volume, which is titled Kiowa County Schools. The first part is a general history of Kiowa County Schools. It is stated in an Editor’s Note that “This History of Kiowa county school was prepared by Frank A. Balyeat, Field Representative, Department of Manuscripts, The University of Oklahoma Library, Norman, Oklahoma. It was researched by Sally Mansell, Hobart, Oklahoma”. Within the text, Dr. Balyeat refers to the time of writing as 1958.
5. History of the Schools of Kiowa County 1901-1958 by Dr. Frank A. Balyeat. I first learned of this from a footnote in the article about Mullins (PKC-2, p 256); but there was no indication of a publisher or whereto find copies. Maggie (Barnes) Walker obtained a copy of it from the Kiowa County Courthouse Files, with the help of Patti Johnson who seems to be able to achieve miracles. My inspection indicates that the material in Pioneering in Kiowa County, v 6, is the same as the original report and not a revised version. There is no indication of to whom the report was made or if it was published. This is a scholarly work with a very comprehensive discussion of the early school system. It also contains extensive numerical data. I have not yet been able to determine exactly what all the source documents were. I think that some may be the archives of the County Superintendent’s office.
6. Rural Schools of Southwestern Oklahoma, by Joseph K. Anderson and Susan Bearden. Museum of the Great Plains Report 96-5. Submitted to Oklahoma Historical Society, January 1958. Lists the locations of a number of schools in Kiowa County. The entry for Lone Star seems to identify it entirely with Con. 8, a misidentification in view of other facts.