The report would indicate that there were either a lot of school dropouts or that there has been a population explosion in the more recent years.

At that time 75 or 80 children attended the Lutheran Parochial School.

By comparison of school attendance then and the number enrolled in the fall of 1966 is as follows:

Our grades 9 through 12 are augmented by tuition students coming in from country districts.

Mollie Taylor, reminiscing in an article appearing in the Battle Creek Enterprise, dated December 14, 1914, stated that the first teacher in 1870 was John Ahrens, who homesteaded the Southwest Quarter of Section 6, Twp. 23, Range 2. His pay was board and room at the Tiedgen home and among the students were four children from the Tiedgen household, Namely: John Harding and Lizzie (Harding) Bussey, Mrs. Tiedgen's children by an earlier marriage, and Ida (Gunkel) Hogrefe and Lena (Gunkel) Tomhagen, young sisters of Mrs. Tiedgen.

School terms were erratic. Miss Taylor stated that at one time Johnnie Harding and his sister Lizzie (who later married Peter Bussey) boarded for a term at the David Whitla home east of Battle Creek and attended a school taught by Mr. Whitla.

Later a Mr. Morris from Creston taught the Tiedgen school which was then District 5. Mr. Morris' brother-in-law, James Graham of Creston, later married Mr. Tiedgen's daughter Ida. The Grahams moved to Wyoming and established a large ranch. The Graham ranch lays between Lander and Rawlins, Wyoming, and is still in the Graham family.

Mr. Morris was then instrumental in bringing John Crook to Madison County (he settled near Meadow Grove). His daughter Sarah Crook was the teacher in School District 5 for three terms.

Then the school was moved to a location a little west of the present Roy Lemke home where Ike Kost (father of John Kost and

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