A History of the Alcester-Hudson School District
In the late eighteen hundreds, the town of Alcester was located on the west edge of the Finn School District. For the first seven years of the town's existence, Alcester's children went to the Finn School. When conditions became crowded there, a private school was started in Alcester. Miss Minnie Catlin conducted this school during the winter of 1888-1889 in the home of A.S. Disbrow, who provided most of the financial support. In 1889-90, the enrollment had increased so greatly that the school was moved to the Congregational Church and it was under the supervision of Mrs. Kate Amey.
The citizens of Alcester saw the need for building a schoolhouse, consequently, the necessary steps were taken to organize the Alcester School District No.76. The new school house was built in 1890 at a cost of $1,223.15, at a site where the home of Albert Muller now stands.
Will Chamberlain, who has since achieved fame as a poet, writer, and newspaper columnist, was the first teacher. The first pupils included: Effie Hoard Huff, May Wheeler Rundquist, Hannah Rosemore Weidenfeller, Ray Harding, William Johannsen, and Norman Mitchell. The first school board was A.S. Disbrow, F.J. Meyers and Reuben Harding. The enrollment continued to grow rapidly and in 1893 another room was added. The ninth grade was included in the 1896-97 school year.
Within a few years, a new brick building was
constructed at a cost of $10,000. It was built on the present location.
Construction on the school was started in 1900 and it was first occupied on March 18, 1901.
At this time, there were eight enrolled in high school and 100 in the grades. May, 1911, saw the first graduates from a full high school course in Alcester. Two girls, Ethel Johnson and Myra Weed, made up the class. The school populations continued to increase and crowded conditions were alleviated by erecting an extra frame building on the school grounds to the east side in 1915.
In 1919 the Alcester High School graduates were: Pearl Johnson, Alma Newberg, Russell Johnson and Charles Green. This year being their 60th anniversary.
It is noted that in 1924 Ida Hyden Beal had a perfect attendance record in high school and also the five years previous. (No wonder-her parents were both doctors!) Also, the first PTA was formed in Alcester that year. Vernon Strickland was seventh and eighth grade teacher. Archie Lawson, being the only boy in the eighth grade class, said it is tough as the girls would pick on him.
In February of 1925, 14 students from the Alcester school attended the National Ski meet at Canton, SD. More than 150 skiers from all parts of the U.S. and Canada competed on the high jump. The crowd was estimated at 25,000 people.
On October 26, 1928, a new brick building was dedicated. The cost was $60,000. The graduates of 1929 had the honor of being the first class to graduate from this new building. Your writer was a member of this class.
In 1947 the school district rebuilt some barracks, which had been secured from the Sioux Falls Air Base for a Vocational Agricultural building. And in 1954, an addition was made to the school building and thus there were extra classrooms, additional library space, a new homemaking department, and a kitchen which is being used for the hot lunch program.
The school had the use of the City Auditorium, which was erected in 1952, for basketball games, junior-senior banquets, commencements, etc. until the new school auditorium was built.
In about ten years, space was again at a premium, so more class rooms and a music room were added to the already growing building. About this time South Dakota started to reorganize its school districts. The first meeting for Union County was held in Elk Point on March 6, 1952. Fourteen years went by before any more was done in the north part of the County. In 1966 a steering committee, composed of Mrs. Bernard Wilson and Vere Larsen, as co-chairmen, Mrs. Jerry Eilers as secretary, and Fay Hendricks as treasurer, was organized. In December, they met with the County Board of Education requesting permission to circulate petitions necessary to call an election for the school district's reorganization proposal.
With their approval, each of the 22 districts involved voted separately. A majority vote was needed to become a part of the new district. Unless the proposal received a majority vote in a number of districts which comprised at least 65 percent of the total valuation of the proposed district, no reorganization would take place. The assessed valuation of the 22 districts was $12,737,000. The final reorganized district could have no less than $8,279,000 in assessed valuation.
In January, 1967, petitions
were filed with the County Superintendent of Schools, Gladys Kjose, for school reorganization. Through the use of the local paper, the Alcester Union, Superintendent R. Kirsch
explained reorganization of districts to the people of Alcester and vicinity. As with anything new there is always opposition... this was no exception. A large crowd attended a meeting in Alcester in February opposing reorganization. Many people hated the thought of change. There was love for the town's own individual school, with all the social functions it provided (basket socials, PTA meetings, debates among the adults, school programs). Would this all be a thing of the past, with everyone going to one big school? The proposal did not carry in the vote. The vote was $2,000,000 short of the needed assessed valuation. Another vote was taken in November of 1967 and eight of the school districts voted to merge into the Alcester district.
Some of the schools were slow in getting reorganized and since the first of January of 1969 was the deadline, a meeting was held in the Alcester school auditorium to update the reorganization information. Supt. of Schools Richard Kirsch and Dennis Hultgren, a member of the Union County Board of Education, gave the audience a great deal of factual information. Tax-wise, the Alcester district was rated as one of the best in the state. In early 1969, the Alcester Independent District No. 176 was reorganized.
With more elementary pupils coming to Alcester, more room was definitely needed. To alleviate this condition temporarily, two houses without the inside wall partitions were constructed just north of the present high school building. These were used until the new elementary school with its attached auditorium was built. One of the houses was then sold and moved off to become Mac Kratochvil's home... the other is still being used for school purposes.
The new elementary building was built in 1974 at a cost of $507,000. Alcester
is proud of this fine school building with its auditorium. It is used for community events and has been filled up many times since its construction. To the west of the building is a monument of stone with a
mounted commemorative plaque dated 1871 to 1973. The plaque reads: "This bell and the base it rests
on is placed here in commemoration of the service given to the children of this area by former school districts which ceased operation forever and formed the Alcester Community Schools. The bell is from the Garland school and the base is formed with native rock from each school district. All or parts of these districts comprise the present Alcester Independent School District No.176." The Alcester community is proud of its school system and the high standards it maintains. The school has produced outstanding livestock judging teams winning national honors; the school paper Dakota (now called Bear Facts) has won many yearly top ratings as well as the school annual Cubette; top honors in music events as well as in sport events and you could go on and on. The school has produced its share of impact in the world of today as its graduates have gone on to become outstanding educators, professors, doctors. editors, authors, artists, nuclear scientists, etc.
It should also be mentioned that many years of service have been spent, in a sacrificial manner (the pay is not so good) by the members of the school board. They do the job with a sense of accomplishment and pride for their school system. Of the many that have given of their time, three members have given a combined 80 years of their time to school board functions. They are E.F. McKellips, Einar Anderson and Robert Anderson.
Some of the Alcester school administrators that we have a record of are: Will Chamberlain, 1890- ; later we have Ora Garner, 1911- ; Ward W. McCreary, -1924; J.O. Davis, 1925-1926; James Daley, 1926-1929; Barrett Lowe, 1929-1933; L.E. Gerber, 1933-1940; Byron H. Foss, 1940- 1943; Henry DeHope, 1943-1947; Vernal Madsen, 1947- 1953; Waldo Anderson, 1953-1955; William Beckman, 1955-1957; C.J. McNulty, 1957-1958; Wilmer Herbold, 1958-1965; Richard B. Kirsch, 1965-1972; Kenneth Wurtz, 1972-1975; Don Zingler, 1975-1998; Steven Schulte, 1998-Current.
One of the former superintendents of renown was Barrett Lowe. He and his family lived in Alcester from 1929 to 1933. He produced the silent film "Dacotah" which premiered at Madison, SD (Lowe's home town) in 1929. This film was later shown in Alcester at the Emmert Theater, with a number of showings during the week. Mrs. Lowe (Emmy Lou) would furnish the musical background with her fine violin music, and she also provided some piano background, too.
One of his first books he authored was "Here and Hero Tales of South Dakota". Another was "Twenty Million Acres", a story of General Beadle. It was while he was president of Sioux Falls College in 1941 that he was called to the Navy in World War II. After the war, he again returned to the Navy to originate and implement the first National Stay-in-School anti-dropout program in the U.S. and to change the recruit approach of all the armed forces. It was this outstanding contribution that brought him recognition and led to his appointment as governor of American Samoa and later as Governor of Guam.
After his retirement, he wrote the book "Problems in Paradise". His wife resides in Virginia, as do their sons.