TRI CITY HIGH A 



THREE DISTRiaS COMBINE TO IMPROVE STANDARDS 



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WAS recommended for radio 

 and sound man at my Navy 

 interview. My schooling in 

 science, mathematics and music was the 

 best help." 



Behind these few words from a letter 

 written by a high school graduate to his 

 former classmates is the story of an out- 

 standing educational program developed 

 by a rural high school in a reorganized 

 district. 



The writer of the letter is a graduate 

 of Tri-City High School located in Buf- 

 falo, a community of 400 near Springfield 

 in Sangamon county. Buffalo is within 

 approximately one mile of the geograph- 

 ical center of a reorganized school dis- 

 trict which comprises 93 square miles. 



Before the reorganization seven years 

 ago there were three high schools serving 

 the same area. Buffalo had a four-year 



high school with an enrollment of 44; 

 the village of Dawson had a small three- 

 year school with an enrollment of 33, and 

 the Mechanicsburg community had a 

 three-year school with 31 students. 



Faced with a problem of declining 

 enrollments, progressive leaders of the 

 three communities decided it would be 

 logical to merge and build a modern 

 school plant at Buffalo as the center of 

 the new district. 



The new district was organized in the 

 spring of 1937 and the old high school 

 buildings were used until the fall of 

 1938 when the new building at Buffalo 

 was opened with an enrollment of 150. 

 The three former high school buildings 

 then became available for the elementary 

 schools of the three villages and pro- 

 vided additional and much needed space. 



Three buses provide transportation for 



the students, one each for Buffalo, Me- 

 chanicsburg and Dawson. The district has 

 owned its own buses since 1940 and finds 

 it much more satisfactory than contract- 

 ing for such services. Per pupil cost of 

 transportation is $29.26 which includes 

 the |15 reimbursement from the state. 

 Ninety per cent of the students are on the 

 bus less than an hour. There are good 

 concrete and improved roads serving the 

 district. 



Before the formation of the Tri-Qty 

 district, all three of the schools were of- 

 fering English, Latin, algebra, geometry, 

 history and general science; two were 

 offering commercial subjects and biology 

 and only one was offering physics and 

 a unit in agriculture. 



Today the boys and girls attending Tri- 

 High ha^e considerably more educational 

 opportunities and all the advantages af- 

 forded in any four-year high school of 

 similar size in the state. The school has 

 nine teachers, including the principal. 



Of particular value to farm boys is the 

 school's agricultural department. Three 

 units are offered in this field. At the an- 

 nual meeting of the Illinois Association 

 of Future Farmers of America in April 

 at Urbana, the Tri-City chapter was se- 

 lected as the outstanding in section 12. 

 This section includes 20 chapters in Cass, 

 Logan, Menard and Sangamon counties. 



Girb oi Tri-CitT High Sdiool find their in which to work. At th* right above teet winners Wesley Veach, Bettr Schair- 

 homemaldng laboratorY a pleasant place Miss Rosemary Holm trains future con- ring, Eileen Mohan, and Ann Ayers. 



L A. A. RECOBD 





