Bushong Rural High School

The journey to erect the Bushong School didn’t come swiftly in fact the exact opposite. A dispute over the legality of the Bushong Rural High School which for a few years had housed students in different buildings throughout town. The Rural High School was organized in 1915 and since then the town and surrounding towns argued the necessity that the Bushong community needed and could afford such a school. In a fight to stay organized many steps were taken to meet the State Departments’ qualifications for accredited schools including sufficient teaching force, school program, course of study, and library and laboratory equipment. This was well received by the State Department but the inspector insisted that the district provide better quarters for the school and students in order to reach accreditation, when they advised this the State highly doubted Bushong would be able to or care to erect a building. At the time there were 168 votes against and 76 for erecting a new building.

In a continued fight to settle this a petition was sent around in the spring of 1917, the petition gained enough 183 signatures, enough that the county commissioners had to decide on whether or not to allow a vote to determine if the school district would continue or be disorganized. The special election was allegedly denied on the grounds that the school district had accumulated property since it was organized. But in a victory for the district, the plans for a new school were accepted and a contractor arrived in Bushong in Nov. 1917 to begin getting rock out for the new building.

The Bushong High School was then erected in 1918 consisting of four rooms with later additions. The later addition came in 1926, a huge gym that was almost the size of just the classroom building itself. Construction started in 1925 with the community often encouraging the workmen because they were anxious to be able to play basketball in their new gymnasium. In 1948 the existing students in grades 1-8 were moved to the Bushong High School from the first two-story school building. In 1950 the building underwent a $16,000 remodeling which delayed the start of the school year until Sept. 11 that year.

Because of the loss of enrollment, in 1955 Bushong’s high school students consolidated with nearby Allen School which later consolidated with other nearby school districts to create the Northern Heights Unified School District in 1957. Grade school and elementary students continued attending in this building. In 1966, third and fourth graders from the surrounding towns all went to Bushong to attend school in this building creating the Consolidated Grade School District No. 6. Again due to declining enrollment the school finally closed in 1970, all elementary and grade school students were consolidated to Allen and Admire. That same year USD 251 put the building up for auction and the Mayor of Bushong, Walt Thomas purchased it for use a Civic Center.  The last mention of the Civic Center in newspapers was in 1978, this is presumably when the building was abandoned. The state of the building has deteriorated significantly, the gym has completely fallen in on itself and the classroom portion of the building is only a shell of the former education center it used to be.

Gallery Below of Bushong School

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