NovaVib

Waterloo is a sleepy Oklahoma town, a whistle stop on the Santa Fe. Its people are mostly dirt farmers who raise wheat on the red, rolling land, or “sundown farmers” who work in the oilfields nearby. Waterloo’s white frame schoolhouse can be seen from the homes of almost every one of the eight families who send their kids to school there.

Last week Waterloo was astir with the biggest local news in 25 years. By state order, the school had been shut down.

Oklahoma had passed a law abolishing the 1,500 one-room schoolhouses in the state. The law was designed to cut Oklahoma’s school bill and boost its educational standards, but Waterloo didn’t see it that way. Next fall they would have to send their children to Edmond, two hours away by bus. Teacher Mary McKinney, who had lived thereabouts all her 47 years, was getting ready to move somewhere else. She was sure of one thing: “I don’t want to teach in a city. City pupils are impudent.”

By Foot, Ford & Horseback. Teacher McKinney’s four years at Waterloo had been pleasant, but never easy. Every morning she got up with the sun, drove her 1938 Ford over dirt roads to the schoolhouse and lit a fire in the old stove. When her 15 pupils arrived—some on foot, some on horseback and some, in muddy weather, on tractors—the room was warm and clean; by that time Miss McKinney had swept and dusted the oiled pine floor.

The day began with a salute to the flag and the Lord’s Prayer. Then Miss McKinney started classes. While she taught one grade, boys & girls in other grades did “busy work” at their desks (“I have no trouble keeping them quiet. They want to learn”). At lunchtime, she and her pupils spread out their vacuum bottles and sandwiches at a long table and ate together. In the afternoon there were more classes, and then sports. Since Miss McKinney never had enough students for two baseball teams, she played first base for both sides (“I’m better at fielding than at running bases”).

Where Everybody Meets. “The school’s what held the community together,” said Mrs. Floyd Jordan, whose husband is director of the school board. “There are two churches. Half goes one way; half goes the other. But everybody meets at the schoolhouse.” The Jordans pay about $100 a year in school taxes (Waterloo gets no state support). They expect that their school taxes will be doubled now, but that wasn’t what most worried parents: it was the thought of the long journey their children would have to make every day. “They’re too little to wait in the dark on a cold country corner,” said Mary McKinney, “especially on bad mornings.”

Waterloo was one of 300 tiny Oklahoma communities that had appealed to the state school board for exemption from the law. The board has already turned down Waterloo’s appeal. Last week the Oklahoma supreme court upheld the new law and the people of Waterloo lost their last hope. Whether they liked it or not, progress was upon them.

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