Tallow Creek School news

It was Lucky Friday the Thirteenth for Tallow Creek School's two students this past June, when they held Tallow Creek's end-of-school program. It was a very small gathering of friends and neighbors since spring is such a busy time.

The students started their program reciting poetry by Wally McRae. Linden Holt (kindergarten) dedicated "The Still" (about an old-timer neighbor who knew "what and I even know whose") to Wesley Orahood, who graduated from Tallow Creek in 1942. Linden illustrated his poem with the real thing, an old-time still that his Grandma Rose Stoneberg and Great Uncle McKee Anderson had found in the Larb Hills and dragged home horseback in the days when they were Tallow Creek students.

Zora Holt (second grade) recited "Maggie" (about a good cow dog with better grammar than her owner) and "A Cost Return Analysis" (about the vagaries of the cow business).

Mongolia has one-room schoolhouses for herders' children that are very similar to Tallow Creek. When Badamgarav "Badmaa" Dovchin visited Tallow Creek and held a program about Mongolia for the Tallow Creek students in 2013, she told them about her experiences attending prairie schools. Her mother was a prairie school teacher. Badmaa played the Mongolian good morning school song "Shine Ugluu" (about bright new mornings for discovery and learning) for the students. With Badmaa's help over the internet, Zora and Linden were able to learn part of "Shine Ugluu" and sing it for their guests.

The students also sang in Czech, IJednou budem dálJ ( We Shall Overcome.) They followed with their end-of-year spelling bee. Linden spelled three words before being stymied by "tub".

Zora played "Swinging Along" on the piano. Linden still makes only limited sense of written music, but was still able to wow the crowd by picking out the "Star Wars Theme" by ear.

After the program, we all enjoyed a delicious potluck meal and swapping stories out in front of the school. Wesley Orahood told us that when he was going to school our book storage room was the coal shed. That explains why it is leaks so much heat out and so many mice in! At that time, it wasn't attached to the school, and the boys would walk out to it to fill the coal scuttle for the teacher. In those days, the school truly did have only one room and the teacher curtained off a corner for her own use. By the time Rose Stoneberg was attending school there, the coal shed had been moved, attached to the main school building, and converted to a teacherage. She remembers two teachers living in the tiny, uninsulated, mousy room, filled to beyond capacity with a wood stove and bed. After Rose graduated, Washington School was moved to the site, attached to Tallow Creek School, and converted to a new teacherage. Today, the old coal shed houses shelves and shelves of curriculum and teaching materials and a lot of mouse traps. One of the students' dreams is to raise enough money that the old coal shed can be replaced with a new room that will keep the warmth in and the mice out (and maybe even keep the books a little more organized.)

It was a beautiful spring program and picnic. Our thanks go to the people that came to share it with us. Our thoughts were also with all the friends of the school that were not able to be with us because of brandings, broken down tractors, animal emergencies, family illness, etc. All of you are special to us and help to make this community the wonderful place that it is.

The friends of the Tallow Creek School are happy to report that McKee Anderson has offered to provide steel for a new roof for the school. A generous $5000 grant from Montana History Foundation, Montana Preservation Alliance, and author Charlotte Caldwell will go far toward making a new roof a reality. Additional funds are being raised by the students through an internet crowdfunding campaign that you can find at http://igg.me/at/littlewhiteschool. (Perhaps some of you will notice that the campaign doesn't mention last names or the name of the school... the internet is a very big place.)