be a stacked deck against the petition of dissolution. And that it was.
1921 August 29- Milford Township Consolidated Schools open for the Second year's operation. For the preceding year, 1920-'21, the average attendance was 105 students with 147 enrolled.
1921 Sept 22- Action on petition of 18 Aug 1921 goes to the County Board of Education. This board, made up of Co. Supt Maude Wakefield, Supt. Bodwell of Ames, Supt. Kirk of Collins, Dr. F.W. Cowgill of Nevada, Mrs E.R. Grove of Roland and Mrs Edward Charlson of Story City, heard three or four days of testimony by two lawyers from each side of the matter. The petitioners had accepted that the decision of the Board would be final unless it could be contested in court.
1921 Oct 6- Story County School Board rules (reportedly by a unanimous vote) that there would be no vote and so the consolidation will stand. Their decision primarily dealt with the matter of whether there would be a vote and this left the only recourse open to the petitioners was to take the matter to the district court. They opted not to do this.
1922 Mid Feb- The three unmoved schools- No.s three, six, and nine, were sold at auction. The buildings and outbuildings had been professionally appraised and offered to the adjacent land owners but not one elected to buy them at the appraised price and each buyer was able to buy the buildings at under the appraised amount. No. 3, Pleasant Grove brick school on Balus Howland land, appraised value$150, out buildings $15- sold for $70 to Lew Osmundson, not an adjacent landowner--- No. 6, on the Rierson Estate, AP $200 and $10, sold to L. C. Rierson for $105 --- No. 9, on Frank Warren land, AP $200 and $15, sold to Frank Warren for J.R. Warren $155. The appraisors, appointed by Maude Wakefield were, Parley Sheldon (tuitioned out of Milford rural school in 1912 to Ames), F. H. Munn, and H. W. Stafford, all of Ames. (Sheldon and Munn, both big names in Ames) The one acre school land reverted to the current owner. However, in 1928, the school acre for No. 8 was officially sold to Rasmusson for "one dollar". What exactly the situation was not explained. 1922 June- Enrollment was 150 in six schools and 10 Grades with 8 hacks for transportation. As a comparison, in 1873 Milford Twp had 8 schools with 212 students and an average of 92 in attendance.
1922 July 15- D. O. Christy and wife sell to the Consolidated Independent School District of Milford the very southwest corner of Sec 15. It measured 466.69 feet square. Why the unusual No.? This measures an exact square of five acres- with about 4.2 acres of non-road land. The dollar amount was reported as $1500 in one source and $1600 in another. The previous two years the land had been leased from Christy for $100 a year. Perhaps the school board had paid the $100 for the upcoming year so that amount was simply subtracted from the amount due. Christy had made the offer to sell this land to the school board for the sum of $400 an acre- four acres plus the roads for the surveyed five acres.
1922 - District was bonded for $70,000 for building the school. It was in 1951 that the mortage on the school building was paid off and, in a ceremony, the mortage was burned. Milford Twp's period of being debt free was short lived in that in 1956 the voters borrowed money and a new gym was constructed and first used on 6 December 1956. The first game was played against McCallsburg on the 7 Dec 1956. The girls lost by decisive margin and the boys won very decisively.
1922 May 24- By the close of 1921-'22 school year, the paper speaks as "by-gones will be by-gones" as most every patron of the school was present and enjoyed a day of feasting and programs. "A splendid spirit was in evidence during the entire day, all seeming bent on forgetting the incidents of trouble of the last year" C.F. Curtiss, who was the Dean of Agriculture at Iowa State, was the main speaker. He grew up just a half mile to the west of the Center School site and reminisced of the days of his attending school and compared that with the advantages the children of 1922 had over those of his youth. See page 215 for Dean Curtiss.
1923 June- A school capable of accommodating 225 students is contracted for $70,000. A philosophy of the time, so the story goes, was to have this type of building built with a flat roof so that, should the need arise, an additional floor
could be added with much less expense.
1923 Summer- Cornerstone put in place with a ceremony. The Iowa Grand Lodge of Masons, assisted by the Nevada Lodge, was in charge. Co. Supt. Kellogg and Milford Twp's own C. F. Curtiss, the Dean of the