50 Years After Closing, Martelle High Still “Lives”

MARTELLE - Who put the cherry bomb in the school toilet?

Who turned the teacher's VW Beetle sideways in her parking spot?

Did the boy's basketball team really take a smoke break in the boiler room after practice?

Ha, ha, ha.

Those were some crazy, yet innocent, times when Martelle had a high school. But it's been 50 years since the last 10 seniors received their diplomas. A lot of water under the bridge. A lot of consternation as the school held on for another three decades as part of the Anamosa Community School District as a junior high school and then as an elementary building.

"There was a lot of animosity about closing the school and going to Anamosa," says Susan Schmidt, 72, a 1957 Martelle grad who has lived in the area all of her life. "Neighbors weren't talking to each other. It was a very difficult time."

Yet, despite that turmoil, the Martelle school community has continued to hold a successful annual reunion. Last year 130 people gathered at Regal Crown Receptions north of Lisbon for an all-school reunion; more than 100 have signed up for 92nd edition this Saturday.

"We still have a little school spirit," Susan says.

"It's rah!," adds Jan Lehr, 71, a Martelle Golden Eagles cheerleader who graduated in 1958. "It used to be rah, rah!"

Susan (center) and Jan (left), along with Marilyn Holcomb, 69, (right) from the class of ‘60, are now the reunion planning committee. They were joined recently by Dick Strother, 82, class of ‘47, who has been enlisted to compile a history of the school on this anniversary of its closing. All still live in or near Martelle.

"It's a wonder we've kept this banquet going this long," marvels Marilyn, who cites some statistics.

From the first class in 1917 until the last in 1962, Martelle High School graduated 521 students. Of those, she says 217 have died and 13 are living in care centers. The other 291 could feasibly come to the reunion and include more than 30 couples with each spouse an alumnus.

The consolidated school began in 1914 with a couple of horse-drawn buses, Dick says. After that building burned from a boiler explosion, students met in a couple of large houses and the opera house/dance hall until the present school was completed in 1926.

"It was the glue that held the community together," Susan says.

While the three-story brick building still stands (it's now owned and used by Darrow Construction), the town has changed a lot in 50 years. As kids, these four grads remember four grocery stores, three restaurants, a tavern, lumberyard and barbershop which are no longer here.

Once the high school ceased to be in 1962, high school students went in all directions - to Anamosa, Mount Vernon, Lisbon, Springville and Mechanicsville. For younger students, controversy festered for nearly 30 years over busing, particularly in the ‘90s around the dividing line between the Anamosa and Mount Vernon districts. But that has subsided with all students who attended the Martelle school invited to the reunion to reminisce.

There, they can remember the good times, just as the grads do theirs, such as senior class trips.

"We went to Chicago," Susan recalls. "The Milwaukee Road planned it for us and it cost $21. They picked us up here (in Martelle) at 2 a.m."

"Ours was also in Chicago," Jan says. "We went to Honolulu Harry's and danced."

"We went to Cedar Rapids," Dick says with a laugh. "The Roosevelt Hotel. We dined there."