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Subject: Panama IA - Want to buy a School?
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 21:51:29 EST

Daily Nonpareil
Council Bluffs IA
December 8th, 2005


Plans under way to save one-room school

TOM MCMAHON, Staff Writer
12/08/2005



PANAMA - Want to buy a school?
You don't even need to buy it. St. Mary's Catholic Church will give you the
one-room schoolhouse if you move it off its Panama property.
"It's a liability," said parish council member Bob Huebert. He said the 1926
structure, built in rural Panama after Washington Township's No. 7 school was
blown away by a tornado, is a building the parish's dwindling resources
can't maintain.
Enter Kathleen Cue and her preservation-minded Friends of Washington Township
No. 7. They are working to not only keep the building from the bulldozers,
but to make it a museum/educational center.
"They gave us until Jan. 1 to come up with the money," Cue said.
When St. Mary's decided in June 2004 to rid itself of the building Cue sees
as an historical landmark, its first inclination was to donate the facility to
the Panama Fire Department - so they could burn it down, Cue said. She
envisions the old schoolhouse as more than kindling wood, though.
"Shelby County is one of only two Iowa counties that don't have an old
one-room schoolhouse converted into a museum," Cue said. The Friends want to move
the structure, transform it into a museum and incorporate it into the area's
school curriculum. She envisions Shelby County fifth-graders spending the day
in the one-room school, experiencing a little bit of Little House on the
Prairie.
The schoolhouse has changed hands and locations over the years. It was
originally built about two miles southeast of Panama on Highway 191. The Iowa
Legislature passed a law in 1959 requiring all schools to offer K-12 classes,
effectively eliminating the one-room school. Panama's was moved to St. Mary's
grounds in 1961, but remained part of the Independent School District. The
building served as a classroom for St. Mary's pupils for the next five years and
in 1967 was turned over to Harlan Community Schools and became one of its
kindergarten buildings. Both Cue's and Huebert's children attended. At some
point the building, located across the street from the now-closed St. Mary's
School, was used for Title I reading. Harlan Schools closed the schoolhouse in
2002, selling it to St. Mary's for $1.
"I am not sure why we bought it," Huebert said.
He said the building, currently used to store games and other items for the
parish's annual picnic, will deteriorate over time. "We don't have the money
to put into it. It will become an eyesore."
St. Mary's is also trying to dispose of Whispering Pines Park, located across
the street from the schoolhouse. Cue thinks it would be the perfect location
for the school and hopes to make that happen.
Cue said a State Historical Society architect deemed the white, wood-frame,
approximately 200-square-foot structure in good shape. "He said it was one of
the best and most ornate he's seen."
Molding around the school's windows, wainscoting and a built-in bookcase are
among the schoolhouse's features, Cue said. Huebert said another intriguing
feature is the building has windows on only one side. School building codes
from 1926-28 banned windows on both opposite walls.
"It was believed cross lighting was hard on students' eyes," Huebert said.
The Friends raised about $500 of $2,500 needed to obtain a $2,500 One Room
Schoolhouse Grant through the state. The total $5,000 would be used to move the
building and do some renovation, Cue said.
She said the Shelby County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to match every
dollar raised up to the $2,500, so that gives the Friends $1,000. "We then
want to form a non-profit foundation and get funds to develop a curriculum,
acquire artifacts such as old desks, maps and presidents' photographs and
provide for ongoing maintenance." Cue said Shelby County Attorney Marcus Gross Jr.
offered to help the group set up the non-profit organization.
Cue hopes some graduates of the one room school, or others who have attended
a class there, will step forward and help out.
"There is a lot of history there," she said. "I hope we can preserve it."
Anyone wishing to donate to the project is asked to make a check payable to
Friends of Washington Township No. 7 and mail it in care of Kathleen Cue to
P.O. Box 15, Panama, IA 51562.

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