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'''May 14, 1976 Spokane Daily Chronicle Page 3:'''
<blockquote>
[[file:1976-05-14-sc-p3-reardan-youth-programs.jpg|thumb|right|200px]][photo]

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

'''Youth Program Backed'''

By RON HAUENSTEIN

Chronicle Correspondent

REARDAN, Wash.— Mention Reardan to residents
of Eastern Washington and
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 in vogue, and
youngsters pack the track,
tennis courts and baseball
diamond. Basketball, it
seems, is not the only game in
town.

Conversations with community
leaders indicate that
other elements of Reardan’s
youth programs, while underpublicized,
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
Tagged 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 fund-raising
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
fund-raising 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 — clergy-men,
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 Ed-
wall 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.
</blockquote>
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1976-05-14-sc-p3-reardan-youth-programs - Revision history

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