COMMUNITY

WHEN ORTING ALMOST LOST IT'S SCHOOL

By: Steve Meitzler July 15, 2008

What year was it? 1947, perhaps 1948. Whenever it was, Orting was in need of a new high school. The old building had been built in 1891 and in 1911 had been doubled in size, but it was a two story frame building, and didn’t have adequate electricity. Needless to say, it was a fire trap. Orting needed a new high school. The school board was all in favor of it, the city was in favor of it and the school district was in favor of it, but the state and county officials weren’t looking favorably at us.

This was the era of consolidation. There were lots of small country schools in Washington state and Pearl Wannamaker, the State Superintendent of Public Education believed that money could be saved and children could be better educated if they went to large schools. So when the Orting school board approached the state with a request for matching funds to build a new school, they were turned down with a resounding “No.” Mrs. Bethel, the county school superintendent and Pearl Wannamaker both came out to Orting and talked consolidation. They insisted that you could pay bus drivers less than you could teachers and that it cost less to operate one large school rather than several smaller ones, and that busses cost less then school buildings, and argument after argument that favored consolidation.

A number of schools did consolidate. Locally she was able to talk Buckley, South Prairie, Wilkeson and Enumclaw into forming the White River School District. It was a union made in hell, but they tried to make it work for several years until finally Enumclaw pulled out and started educating all of their children on their side of the river. It was at this same time that the Bethel school district was formed in Southern Pierce County by taking a number of small schools like Kapowsin and Graham, Frederickson and others.

The state and county were insistent that Orting consolidate with Sumner and drop the high school all together, using the Sumner high school. After all, Orting didn’t have that many high school kids, and Sumner is only 8 or 9 miles away. At this same time Electron was drawn out of the Orting district and was joined into the Bethel district. This was done to enhance the tax base for the Bethel district since it consisted mostly of subsistence farmers and by taking away that money from Orting would force them to consolidate.

But Orting wasn’t to be easily persuaded. The school board, consisting of Ester Whitley, Wayne Harman, Tony Rauch and Mrs. Westby believed that Orting had been providing their kids a good education and that they could continue to do so, but they needed an adequate building. The people of Sumner weren’t all that excited about consolidating with Orting either. They could see the need for a larger high school building if consolidation happened and what they had was adequate for them for the time being and for the foreseeable future. No, Sumner wasn’t interested, but that didn’t stop Mrs Wannamaker and Mrs. Bethel from promoting – no insisting – that Orting and Sumner consolidate.

Finally the school board took action. Their proposal was to go to the voters and see if they would accept a raise in taxes, enough to pay the whole bill for a new high school. Millage they called it then. I haven’t been told the amount, but it was so many mils per thousand dollars of valuation on your county taxes. It passed. The board knew that the district wouldn’t vote for a fancy building, so they proposed a very modest high school and the constituency came through. The board put the building up for bids and Charley Skinner came in with the low bid of $40,000.00. No it wasn’t a fancy dancy palace. There were no lockers, they came later when they could afford them, and the equipment in the science room was salvaged from the old school. But Orting was able to maintain their own district and run it the way they chose.

Now, 60 years later we can look back with pride and cheer them. They did a marvelous job.
Submitted by Steve Meitzler, President, Orting Historical Society

Photo: Courtesy of Wayne Harman