Back to School Part Two – Putting One-room Schools to the Test

By Bennett Owen

Credit: Pictoscribe - Moseying Back to The Wild 

I don’t know about their self-esteem but it appears the rural eighth graders ‘back in the day’ actually knew a thing or two when they left those creaky clapboard temples of learning. For a truly humbling experience, check out this document that purports to be the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas.

Credit: alansheaven

The actual exam is extensive but for brevity’s sake I’ve provided a quick overview along with some helpful hints:

Grammar:
Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.  – I fail that with every post at My-West.

Arithmetic:
Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent. - I find absolutely no interest in that.

US History: 
Give the epochs into which US History is divided.  – That’s easy. The pre and post wireless Internet eras.

Orthography:  (yes, I had to look it up too!)
What are the following and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?  - I think a diphthong is something Lady Gaga wears.

Geography:
Describe the movements of the earth. -  That’s what happened the first time I kissed Rita Grand.

Health:
Where are saliva, gastric juice and bile secreted?  -  Hey, let’s keep Washington, DC out of this.

Credit: JohnsonCreekHistory.com

At any rate, here are some people who most likely could have passed that test with flying colors:

Herbert Hoover  - the first US president born west of the Mississippi, Hoover attended a one-room schoolhouse in West Branch, Iowa – He spent much of his youth with his pioneer uncle in Newberg, Oregon.

Laura Ingalls Wilder – Attended a one-room school in De Smet, South Dakota, the basis for her Little House on the Prairie books.  She also taught at one-room schools beginning at age 17.

Grant Wood – One of America’s best-known painters taught at a one-room school in Iowa in the early 1900s.

Clifford E. Paine – designer and engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge attended Peachbelt School in southwest Michigan.

The Graduates of the “One-Armed School” – The wives of atomic scientists transported to remote Los Alamos, New Mexico in the early 1940s, started up a one-room school in a log cabin for their kids.  Early estimates put the pupils’ average IQ at 150.  The local joke was that anybody who couldn’t make the grade at school could always qualify for a job at Los Alamos labs.

And finally, if a kid has to go to school, it really should be in places like these:

6. Mesa Schoolhouse, Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Credit: DQmountaingirl

Credit: DQmountaingirl

5. The Old Schoolhouse, Jefferson, Colorado – Built around 1901

Credit: wikipedia.org

4. Schoolhouse with the Hearst Castle in the Background.

Credit: KatRya

2. Grafton Schoolhouse, near Zion Park, Utah – One of the most photographed structures in the western US.

Credit: motionblur

1. Calf-A, Dell, Montana – Originally built as a schoolhouse in 1903, it is now a café with some of the best pies in the western United States.

Credit: My-West.com

Credit: My-West.com

Send us your one-room school photos and anecdotes!

Credit: t.magnum

Back to School Part Two – Putting One-room Schools to the Test

Bill Pickett Rodeos – The Greatest Show on Dirt

By Bennett Owen

Credit: Frenchcreoles

The Bill Pickett Rodeo circuit is celebrating its 27^th year … a singular showcase for African American cowboys with four stops throughout the year capped off by a championship in September in our nation’s capital.  It’s a going concern. Last weekend, Hayward, California, just outside Oakland. Next weekend, Los Angeles. (tickets available online at www.billpickettrodeo.com)

The legendary Bill Pickett was a giant of the west, larger than life whose sweat, pride and ingenuity commanded respect and earned deep and enduring friendships. He was born in 1870 on a dirt poor Texas ranch, one of 13 children, and yet by the early 20^th century he was a star with the 101 Ranch Wild West Show…one of the great shows in the tradition of "Buffalo Bill" Cody. The two were good friends.  As rodeo came into fashion, Pickett performed in the granddaddy of ‘em all, the Cheyenne Frontier Days.

Credit: Frenchcreoles

There are many legends as to how Pickett invented one of modern rodeo’s signature events. My favorite has him spying his son in a pen with an angry Bull and wrestling the animal to the ground, in part by biting hard on his lip as he’d seen the cow dogs do. And thus the sport of “Bulldogging” … Steer Wrestling … was born.  (The action starts at about 1:00)

Another cowboy and film legend, Yakima Canutt, later said that the resulting sport of “hoolihaning" was so dangerous to both contestants and stock that it was outlawed, following a rash of injuries and death.

Credit: Paris, LA

Nevertheless, Pickett rose to stardom with the wild-west show, performing throughout America, Canada, Mexico, South America and Britain alongside Buffalo Bill, Cowboy Bill Watts, Tom Mix and Will Rogers.  His heroic feat of daring and bravery alongside Rogers in Madison Square Gardens is one of the favorite stories of my youth. Read it here.

In the 1920s, Hollywood beckoned and “The Dusky Demon” was featured in several films including “The Bulldogger.”

Pickett was roping wild stallions in 1932 when a bucking Bronc crushed his skull. His funeral was one of the biggest ever witnessed in Oklahoma and Will Rogers, on his radio show, eulogized his friend thusly: “Bill Pickett never had an enemy. Even the steers wouldn’t hurt old Bill.”

Credit: okstate.edu

His longtime boss and friend, Colonel Zack Miller of the 101 Ranch called him "the greatest sweat-and-dirt cowhand that ever lived." He also wrote an epic poem about the man and you can read it here.

In 1971 Pickett became the first African American inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame. The Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame and Museum of the American Cowboy have followed suit.

Credit: Billpickettrodeo.com