Sitting on the top row of bleachers in the Orient-Macksburg gym above a sea of basketball-playing kids and chatting adults, Donna Blair reflects on old memories from her former school days. Just a few feet away is the spot where she and her high school sweetheart — now her husband — kindled their relationship early on.
“He was a year older. So for a year, there was a pay telephone, but it was free to call him,” she said with a smile. “Every day after lunch, I would go to the telephone and call him, and then when the bell rang, I ran to my class as fast as I could.”
Blair was one of hundreds of alumni who attended a recent farewell celebration to mark the closure of the Orient-Macksburg school district and reflect on how their lives have been shaped and intertwined with the school. In May, the school marked the final day students would attend classes in the district.
It's the first Iowa school district to dissolve since Corwith-Wesley did so in 2015. Orient-Macksburg, as a consolidated school district, existed for nearly 65 years.
“It was always a very friendly school,” said Blair. “The kids were friendly. The class sizes were small — clear back in the '80s — but I felt like we had really good teachers, and they cared. You always knew that they cared.”
After raising their children in eastern Iowa, Blair and her husband moved back three years ago to purchase his family farm and to work at the O-M schools. She worried she wouldn’t know anyone, but quickly found out that wasn’t the case.
“I would say 90% of the people I made a connection [with were] from somebody that I knew, of their relatives,” she said. “Students that I had in my class were grandkids, sometimes great grandkids, of kids that I knew when I went to school here. So that was kind of a cool feeling.”
Down the bleachers from where Blair sat were young students and alumni playing a game of basketball as the reunion wound to a close. Christa Cass, a 2023 graduate of O-M schools was among them.
Cass said there were “plenty of tears” when the community found out the school was officially closing. But she said the farewell celebration felt special.
“Being here today just reminds me of all the memories that we've had. Because we've had homecomings, proms, FFA — all the above," she said. "And it just holds a really close place to my heart.”
Cass was the first girl in the school’s history to qualify for state cross country. She said her send off for the meet is a memory that will stick with her forever.
“We had everyone in the gym,” Cass said. “We had neighbors coming in, the whole town was there, and we just got to really celebrate. That made me feel great because I also broke history even being in a small school.”
Having attended Orient-Macksburg since first grade, Cass could attest to the town's constant support of the school and its students.
“The school meant a lot to the community because there's always people from graduating classes at every single volleyball, basketball and softball games,” she said. “I know, like small crowds, it seems like, ‘Hey, there's not a lot of people.’ But it's people who always show up time and time again. So that's what matters.”
Across town at the local hangout, Jennie’s Place, Teresa Thompson, a 1983 graduate, recalled wearing many hats while working at the school.
“I coached, I was the prom sponsor, I always said I did everything but drive the bus,” said Thompson, who worked at the high school for 32 years, first as a teacher and later as an administrator. “That's how we survived for as many years as we did. We had a lot of people who were willing to step up and do whatever job they needed to do to keep us going.”
As an administrator, she said hearing the news about the school’s official closure wasn’t surprising.
“I was well aware of how we kind of, you know ... robbed Peter to pay Paul in different areas," she said. "How we talked teachers into coaching that maybe really didn't want to, or it was not their favorite thing to do, how we got teachers endorsed to teach things to help us meet our accreditation, and just to be able to maintain where we were."
The school board unanimously voted to close the district last year due to low enrollment, which led to low funding from the state. This year, the school had a graduating class of five.
In March, the community held a special election in which people voted overwhelmingly to dissolve the district.
Next year, O-M students will go to nearby Nodaway Valley Community School District. The districts already have a whole grade sharing agreement. However, students can and already do attend other districts through open enrollment.
Despite the closure of the O-M district, Teresa Thompson said the legacy of the school will continue.
“I've always said that even though the doors are closing, Orient-Macksburg is going to live on,” she said. “All the people that we've educated — all the students, all the teachers — they're going to go out into other communities and do good things in those communities. So even though we're not here, we can feel like we did our job, and we did a good job while we were doing it. We're proud of that.”
