Soap Creek Schoolhouse Foundation MARK YOUR CALENDARS

Transcription

1 Soap Creek Schoolhouse Foundation Annual Newsletter May 2012 Hello to all the neighbors, friends, and former students of the Soap Creek Schoolhouse. Summer is coming! MARK YOUR CALENDARS GARAGE SALE Donation Drop-Off. at schoolhouse Garage Sale at schoolhouse Saturday June 16, 9am-4pm Saturday June 23, 9am-4pm Please no TVs or big appliances. If you need help transporting any large donations or if you d like to help with the garage sale, please contact Nancy Hyde. NEIGHBORHOOD PICNIC Sunday, July 22 2:00-5:00 pm Location: Writsman Creek Dr., The home of Brett Reistad and Sarah Uebel. Bring a salad, dessert, or side dish, and any beer or wine you desire. All else is provided! Everyone is welcome! ARTISTS STUDIO TOUR, coming Sept. 15, 2012 There are many artists living in the Soap Creek Valley, and they have organized an open house at the Schoolhouse, in which their work will be on display and for sale. The artists will be available to discuss how they create their work; in conjunction, three or four of the artists will have their local studios open to the public. A website for this event is being designed by our own Joe Crockett, and will be available soon at It will have full details.

2 2 FINANCES Dues and Donations received in 2011 = $323. THANK YOU! We didn t hold a garage sale last year because people needed time to accumulate more great junk to sell. Unfortunately, the amount of annual dues received fell short of our usual amount, so our cash on hand today is only about $600. (Our fixed annual expenses are about $800.) This year we d really like to see an enthusiastic turnout for the June 23rd garage sale (drop off items on June 16th). We d also like to ask everyone who enjoys the presence of the Schoolhouse to send in $10 for membership dues. Anyone can be a member! See the last page of the newsletter for the donation form. THANKS! MUSICAL OPPORTUNITY A small group of amateurs from Corvallis has been using the Soap Creek Schoolhouse once a month, as a place to gather and make music just for fun. They have opened up their meetings to anyone from the neighborhood who is interested in joining them. Strictly acoustic instruments and singing, no electrics. Here are some details: All ages and skill levels are welcome. All non-electrified instruments are welcome as long as they don t overwhelm everyone else. (Most of the group consists of guitars, fiddles, mandolins, etc. Loud band instruments wouldn t fit the bill.) If you just want to come and listen, that s fine too. Music Night is the third Friday of every month, starting at 8:30 pm at the Schoolhouse.

3 3 TAKE A LOAD OFF Wouldn t it be nice for visitors to be able to sit on the Schoolhouse porch and just watch the world pass by? Do you have a wooden bench that you d like to donate for this purpose? We re looking for a non-upholstered bench or wooden loveseat, up to 71 inches long. Rustic-looking but not splintery. We d run a chain from it to the porch railings to encourage it to stay put. Please contact Bart Spiller, Nancy Hyde, or Joe Crockett if you can provide something. Tax-deductible! TRAIL USE CONSIDERATION A few families in the neighborhood have asked for people to think twice before using trails in the area for horses or bikes during the wet season: A number of families in the valley allow neighbors to use recreational trails that cross their property. OSU and Starker Forests also have a number of recreational trails. Some of the trails have been damaged by horse and bike riders during the wet months. Please respect the property owners rights and other trail users by only riding horses and bikes on the trails during the dry months (generally June through October) unless otherwise posted. Some trails have been permanently closed to horses due to mis-use in the past. If you have any questions, please make sure to ask the property owners before using their trails. Please be considerate and try to avoid damaging trails and paths. If it s hard not to create damage, you re in the wrong place.

4 4 NEIGHBORHOOD NEWSLETTER A Soap Creek neighborhood newsletter via has been up and running since last October. It comes out approximately once a week and contains information submitted by the neighbors themselves. There are stories of local interest, details of meetings that people might like to attend, notices of lost dogs (very successful!), and advertisements of local produce and services. If you d like to make sure you receive the weekly neighborhood newsletter, send your own address(es) to Nancy Hyde, NHyde@peak.org. She ll put you on the list! HISTORY BUFFS LOOK HERE! Joe Crockett has let us know about a wonderful archive of interviews and articles which include the history of the Soap Creek area. Of particular interest is the Bob Zybach interview of Lorna Grabe, about the history of the Soap Creek Schoolhouse Foundation. Go to IR.Library.OregonState.edu, then do a keyword search for Soap Creek in the Scholars Archive. It s very easy to do, and several wonderful documents open at your fingertips. CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE Joe Crockett developed a beautiful website for us: It contains the history of the schoolhouse, lots of old photos, directions for visitors, and newsletter information. SAVE PAPER and POSTAGE! If you re receiving this Schoolhouse Newsletter on paper, that means we don t have an address for you! To receive future Schoolhouse Newsletters via contact NHyde@peak.org.

5 5 Neighborhood Picnic, 2011

6 6 Pioneer Days at the Schoolhouse a BIG SUCCESS! Instead of having a typical field day in May of 2011, the third graders of Mountain View Elementary came to the Soap Creek Schoolhouse for an experience of school in the olden days. Former student Glee Butler, née Govier, who now lives in Corvallis, spoke to the kids about how school was done when she was a youngster in That was the last year during WWII that the Schoolhouse was active, with eight students attending.* Her son Dave Butler accompanied her to Pioneer Days, and her grandson currently attends Mountain View. Organizer Doug Pollock says, We had approximately 70 third-grade students from Mountain View attend the Pioneer Days Celebration. I was responsible for the woodworking (timber framing) demonstration and also organized shingle splitting. Each kid got to have a try on the hand-crank boring machine, and also split a cedar shake (that he/she got to take home). Each of the three classes of third graders also sat down for an old-fashioned lesson in the schoolhouse, and learned about games that kids used to play (outside). This was the first time we ve organized this kind of thing for the students. I think everyone would agree that it was highly successful. Judging by the smiles on the kids faces, they had an awesome time. We ll be doing it again for this year s 3rd graders. * The Soap Creek School was closed in 1943 when Camp Adair purchased all the land in the area for a troop training ground, and the area families were displaced. It reopened for the 1945 school year, but was closed again after the end of the 1946 school year when the one-room schools were consolidated into Corvallis school districts (per the application to the National Historic Registry).

7 7 Mt. View Elementary 3rd Grade Pioneer Days, 2011

8 8 BUILDING USE The Soap Creek Schoolhouse is available for use throughout the year for small meetings of local interest. Please obtain permission and a key by contacting either Bart Spiller at , or Nancy Hyde at A $20 key deposit is required. Note: the Schoolhouse Foundation does not endorse any political or religious group but does allow its facilities to be used by such groups. CONTACTS Nancy Hyde, or nhyde@peak.org, Bart Spiller, , Joe Crockett (website) or jcrockett@earthlink.net WEBSITE: Please provide your address to reduce printing and mailing costs. Thanks! ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP DUES and DONATIONS Name (s) Address Phone $10 Annual Membership Dues $ Any Additional Donations $ Total $ Please make checks to Soap Creek Schoolhouse and mail to: Nancy Hyde, Treasurer, Soap Creek Road, Corvallis, OR 97330