Racently elected Kane 

 County Rural Youth 

 officers are, left to 

 right: Mariam Carl- 

 son, treasurer; Don 

 McClay, president; 

 Wally Brown, vice 

 pros.; Shirley Thels, 

 secretary; and Dor- 

 o t h y Vantheumont, 

 editor. 



WHY NOT CONSOLIDATE 

 SMALL HIGH SCHOOLS? 



(Continued from page 10) 

 high school; we'll lose our trade." The 

 answer is that they will not lose their 

 high school but will have perhaps a few 

 miles away a stronger high school, better 

 equipped and adapted to ser\'e the com- 

 munity. 



Farm people have no great stake in the 

 small high school that fails to provide a 

 good agricultural or home economics 

 course, but village people are often less 

 well informed and practical. 



Many patrons, including many village 

 people, become ardent basketball fans to 

 the extent that sport to them seems to 

 be the most important function of the 

 high school. They cannot imagine be- 

 coming a part of a larger school district 

 including the town several miles down 

 the road which they have always con- 

 sidered an enemy in basketball. The 

 greater efficiency of the larger district 

 means little to them. And the scaling 

 down of per capita costs means little be- 

 cause many of those people pay very little 

 property tax. 



Another group has a vested interest in 

 the small high school. This is the 

 school employee who thinks first of per- 

 sonal welfare and second of the boys and 

 girls. Many of these teachers and prin- 

 cipals are interested enough in the bene- 

 fit to the pupils and to the community of 

 the larger school district to be willing to 

 make what sacrifices, if any, are neces- 

 sary. These teachers and principals have 

 little to fear because they know they 

 have recognized ability in their profession 

 and will be able to render service that 

 will be in demand by a larger school 

 district. 



The many advantages under the Com- 

 munity Unit Act passed in the last legis- 

 lature merit careful consideration by 

 those who would improve our school 

 system. This act makes possible a 

 thorough reorganization job by combin- 

 ing the grade school with the high school 

 under one school board, one super%'isor, 

 and one tax rate. 



Significantly, Ohio that has done con- 



siderable reorganization of school dis- 

 tricts in the larger community basis rates 

 above Illinois on most educational yard- 

 sticks, particularly in school organiza- 

 tion, yet per capita costs there are 25 

 per cent lower than per capita costs in 

 Illinois. To get our money's worth of 

 education small high schools as well as 

 small grade schools must pool their re- 

 sources in a larger, more effective ad- 

 ministrative and taxing unit. 



MISSOURIANS VISIT 



To get a look at the Farm Bureau set- 

 up in Illinois which they had heard so 

 much about, 13 farmers from Johnson 

 county, Missouri visited the Farm Bureau 

 offices in Logan, Sangamon, and McLean 

 counties in December. 



New AFBF Head is 

 Long-Time Hog Farmer 



ALLAN B. KLINE, the new presi- 

 dent of the American Farm Bureau 

 Federation, is a 52-year-old hog 

 farmer from near Vinton, Iowa. 



He has been president of the Iowa 

 Farm Bureau Federation for the past 

 several years and vice president of the 

 American Farm Bureau Federation for 

 two years. Kline helped set up the new 

 International Federation of Agricultural 

 Producers at London in 1946. He repre- 

 sented the AFBF at the IFAP confer- 

 ence at The Hague, Netherlands. 



Owner and operator with his son of a 

 440-acre farm on which his three children 

 were reared, Kline has had considerable 

 experience in both state and national 

 Farm Bureau leadership during the past 

 several years. 



Romeo Short, Brinkley, Ark., the 

 AFBF's new vice president, is president 

 of the Arkansas Farm Bureau. He was 

 born in Illinois, reared in Iowa, and has 

 been an Arkansas farmer since 1920. 

 Short has been a member of the AFBF 

 board of directors since 1937. He is a 

 rice, cotton, and livestock farmer. 



Short is an able speaker and is recog- 

 nized as an authority on farm credit. He 

 is a director of Farm Credit Administra- 

 tion's St. Louis district. The Shorts have 

 one son, a student at Oklahoma A & M 

 College. 



Mcdonough assistant 



Earle A. Smith, 38, is the new assist- 

 ant farm adviser and organization di- 

 rector for McDonough county. Smith 

 comes to Macomb from Lincoln where 

 he has been a special insurance agent. 



ONE THOUSAND MEMBERS 



Saline County Farm Bureau was 30 

 years old Oct. 27, 1947, has grown from 

 about 60 charter members to more than 

 1000. 



lAA Director Albert Webb (standing) chats with a group during the AFBF llvestecti 

 marketing conference af the Stevens Hotel in Chicago. Left to right, seated: Carl O. 

 Johnson, DeKalb county; Charles Hearst, Cedar Falls, la.; and R. K. Bliss, Extension Service, 



Iowa State College. 



FEBRUARY, 1948 



