Chase Allgood / News-Times
A ‘country school’ turns 150
State of Oregon and Gales Creek Elementary School both celebrate big birthdays this week
By Nancy Townsley
The Forest Grove News-Times, Feb 11, 2009
Precisely at 10:30 Thursday morning, Byron and Melvin “Max” Ranes will pull a rope connected to the cast-iron bell that hangs in the foyer of Gales Creek Elementary School.
When they do, the men – whose great-great-uncle and great-great-grandfather, John and Albert Ranes, attended classes there four generations ago – will ring in the school’s 150th year in a fashion reminiscent of its founders’ intentions.
Gales Creek School, after all, has been a center of life in the farming and logging community since 1859, when a simple log cabin classroom was established in a location where thousands have since learned their ABCs.
To celebrate, Principal Betty Flick, parent volunteers and the entire Gales Creek student body have planned a blowout birthday party tomorrow morning, complete with cake and singing. “The neat thing about our school is that there is so much community and so much history here,” said Flick, who will retire at the end of the 2008-09 school year
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