1976-05-14-sc-p5-reardan-youth-programs

May 14, 1976 Spokane Daily Chronicle Page 5:

Inland Empire Spotlight

Youth Programs Backed by Reardan's Residents

By Ron Hauenstein

Chronicle Correspondent

REARDAN WASH.—Mention Reardan to residents of Eastern Washington ant their response might be, "That's the basketball town, isn't, it?"

A quiet community 20 miles west of Spokane on U.S. Highway 2, Reardan and its maple court antics—five state B basketball championships in 10 years—have prompted tales of basketball hoops on every power pole in town and created visions of lanky farm kids who perfect the bank shot and pick and cutaway before they learn to operate a pitchfork.

A visit to the perennial powerhouse of the Bi-County League puts such fables to rest as quickly as a technical foul muzzles a coach. Spring sports are pack the track, tennis courts and baseball diamond. Basketball, it is not the only game in town.

Conversations with community leaders indicate that other elements of Reardan’s youth programs, while under-publicized, are as outstanding as the town’s athletic accomplishments. Consider these examples, the leaders suggest:

— Reardan’s Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter is one of the strongest in the state. Since Adviser Fred Springer arrived in 1967, Reardan’s parliamentary procedure teams have been in the state finals every year but one. In a recent five-year stretch, four Reardan FFA members were state officers.

The first year Reardan entered meats judging competition, two students made the Washington State team, won a trip to the National FFA Convention in Kansas City and placed ninth in the nation. Three to five Reardan FFA members each year receive the State Farmer Degree, an award given only to the top two per cent of the state’s membership.

— While often competing against much larger schools, the high school band, chorus and other musical groups perennially bring home a lion’s share of first-place ribbons.

— Boy Scout, 4-H and other youth development programs score similarly high marks.

Those programs would not enjoy such success without a high degree of commitment from the town’s citizens. When band uniforms became ragged and worn, a fund drive raised $5,000 for 50 new uniforms in a matter of months. When an athlete was injured in a football game, the town sponsored fundraising activities throughout Lincoln County that generated $13,000 to help meet medical and therapeutic expenses. Farmers regularly "lend" a portion of their ground to the FFA as fundraising project, allowing FFA members to rogue the grain and collect premiums as payment.

The most visible sign of community support for the young, as well as an indication of the town’s pride in itself, is a recreation complex on the south side of town. Completed last fall were lighted tennis courts and baseball diamonds, a track and a football field. The project, if contracted out, would have cost an estimated $400,000, but a $69,000 recreation grant, $35,000 in contributed funds, and an impressive $175,000 to $200,000 donation in the form of labor and equipment from the town’s citizenry made the project’s blueprints a reality.

J. B. Johnson, recently retired superintendent of schools at Reardan, was the prime force behind the project. Johnson fought the red tape, monopolized the phone and knocked on the right doors to get the massive undertaking off the ground, knowing that he could depend on the community to back his efforts.

“The recreation project is an indication that people here take a great deal of pride in their community,”’ Johnson said. “Everyone—clergymen, school faculty and the man on the street—is trying to make Reardan a better place to live.”

Springer agrees that pride is an important element in the community’s support for its youth. "The town feels its youth activities are its backbone, its strength,” he said.

The Rev. Philip Falk, pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church here and organizer of many activities, prefers to analyze the community from a sociological perspective. He believes it is significant that Reardan, a scant 20 miles from Spokane, has maintained an identity all its own.

Just because we help each other in times of crisis and just because we have a good school system and a sound economy does not make us a good community,” he explained. “It is the ability to handle the intense relationships that come with small town life that make us a community. When people become irritating, that is when people turn away and begin establishing themselves elsewhere.”

Reardan has stayed independent of its metropolitan neighbor and established its own social systems because of options, Mr. Falk believes.

"We had the option of maintaining a run-of-the-mill, intramural basketball program or building a state champion," he said. "Parents decided it was worth it to them to have their kids practice during Christmas vacation and on an occasional Saturday. We had the option to decide whether the center of influence was going to be Spokane or community pride.” Those options, however, are becoming more and more limited. A growth boom, both within the city limits and in the 400 square miles that comprise the school district, is creating other forces that want a voice in choosing those options. According to Mayor Emil Stuhlmiller, a city census just completed shows Reardan’s population has risen from 380 four years ago to 508. That kind of growth has not been experienced since the town went from 378 citizens in 1902 to a population of 900 in 1905.

Much of the growth within the city limits, Stuhlmiller said, has come from retired farmers and other citizens who have built new residences. An apartment complex and a rejuvenation of mobile home courts also have contributed to the boom.

Stuhlmiller believes the town would grow even more rapidly if it could get enough water. The city has only one reliable well—pumping at about 200 gallons a minute—and is awaiting water from a well drilled last summer. The new hole, however, keeps filling in with sand at about 150 feet, and the city feels it needs to go to 300 feet to get the pressure necessary to serve the community.

Growth outside the city limits has been as substantial as the house-sprouting phenomenon within the town’s borders, putting a high premium on classroom space at Reardan’s elementary school. One-third of the school district is in Spokane County where, just a few miles from Spokane’s city limits, new homes are being built at a rapidly increasing rate. Most of the residents are employed in Spokane, but, because of school district boundary lines, they send their children to Reardan.

Part of the ensuing classroom crunch was alleviated when the Reardan and Edwall school districts consolidated last year, making the combined district one of the largest in the state. Seventh graders were bused to Edwall the previous year under an agreement between the two districts, and this year the seventh grade and about one-half of the eighth also make the 15-mile journey to Edwall.

Nevertheless, says school board chairman Harvey Bergeron, student-teacher ratios at the elementary level (grades one through eight) are becoming "unacceptably high." Many classrooms, he said have 30 to 35 pupils, and an enrollment study conducted for the board shows a five per cent growth each year for the next several years.

Richard Omans, who took over the superintendent’s job at Reardan last fall, said construction of new school buildings could be as distant as five years, because of the mechanics of state funding.

Consolidation of the Reardan and Edwall districts made the combined district eligible for 90 per cent funding of the cost of construction of new buildings, Omans said, but few state officials seem to know exactly when the money will be made available.

"We have a promise from the State Board of Education that we will get the 90 per cent funding, but our place on the state’s priority list means we may not get the money until 1979 or as late as 1981,” he said.

Omans and the school board faced some uncertainty in their planning this spring because of failure March 9 of a special levy proposition. However, school district voters cleared the picture this week with passage of a special $436,224 levy for 1976-77 on the second try. The favorable vote was 72.5 per cent.

Also approved with a 61.5 favorable vote was levy to provide $24,000 for purchase of a large school bus. Hopes to link the school bus fleet with the district office via a two-way communications system were dashed, on the other hand, by a 2-to-1 vote against a $15,000 funding proposal.

Omans and the board have accepted the responsibility of mediating the educational needs expressed by predominantly agricultural interests at one end of the district, Edwall, as well as the educational needs of the nearly urban interests found in the northeastern corner near Spokane. The ability of those groups to find common ground could be a challenging test of Mr. Falk's sociological thesis that a community maintains its sense of pride and spirit because of the ability of its citizens to deal with one another.

Homes and business houses mingle at Reardan, but grain elevators dominate the skyline.