VC HISTORY, EPISODE 6 with Tim Lee

DACC Executive Director of Public Relations and VC History host, Lara Conkin sits down and talks with Tim Lee.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Welcome to DC History, the program where we talk about the 200 years of Vermilion County, Illinois, people, places, little-known happenings that made our history great. And I'm Lara Conklin, and my guest today is Tim Lee. Tim is from Oakwood and was a long-term Oakwood educator. And he and I both sit together on the 200th anniversary committee for Vermilion County. And you know a lot about the history of specifically the Oakwood School District. Other things too, but but a lot of history about Oakwood School District, and that's what we're going to talk about today.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Thanks for having me. Look forward to talking to you.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Yeah, we'll we'll have fun. So uh Vermilion County formed 1826. We're celebrating 200 years this year. Uh tell me how how soon after that did Oakwood start to have did little schools start to pop up?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Well, the one room schools start in the 1850s as population begins to grow, but we don't really see a high school per se until uh the 1910s. And then there is a uh there's a push in the area to to build high schools. Um remember most of these kids had been walking to the one room schools and and they were they were situated to be a mile away from each other, so no one or no student had to walk more than a mile the way that the schools were set up. Uh so Vermillion, or not Vermillion County, Oakwood Township decided to they wanted a high school and they surveyed the people and they found they were gonna have about 35 students in nine to would start the 1916 school year. So they had a debate as to where to put this school.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Because a lot of times people ask, why is Oakwood High School out in the middle of nowhere out in the country? Well, you have to realize it started out as Oakwood Township High School.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Um but it's not Oakwood Township anymore, correct? It is just Oakwood High School.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

I don't know. There's an official just township just got dropped somewhere in the 80s and it's now just Oakwood Town Oakwood High School. Uh so people associate it with the town because that is the largest town in the school district, but that was was never. Vivian. Yes. According to the IHSA, because of our address, we are Oakwood Fifthy. Closest to Muncie, Fifth Inn address, named Oakwood. So all that's confusing. And so the reason for that is in 1916, 1915, the villa the people wanted a high school. There was one group of people who wanted two high schools, one in Oakwood on the east side of the township and one in Fifth Inn on the west side of the township.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

For 35 students.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yes. 18, 17 of each. Uh, and then there were the people that just wanted one high school, and the Muncie people kind of wanted that because they rightly figured they're in the middle. So if there's one high school, they're going to get this. So remember, these kids had only been walking a mile.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

This school district's going to be bigger, so there's going to be more difficulty getting these kids to school. So you would think this would be an easy campaign, you know, these people all like each other, we all work together now. That was not the case in 1915. It got pretty contentious. Um, the Munsey, the first they were going to do this election three straight Saturdays. The first one in Oakwood, then in Muncie, and then in Fithian. And the Muncie people got out and really pushed the vote. And the election in Oakwood was chaos. They had never seen so many people in town. It was the Muncie people pushing people in town. They say that some of the Oakwood people wouldn't go vote because it was so crazy. But to the shock of all the Oakwood people, they lost that election.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

So the next week it was supposed to be the Muncie election. Well, the Oakwood people tried to pull the same act and try to swing that election against Muncie. But the Fithian people, sort of seeing the trend the way this is going, realizing they weren't going to go to school, right? They sort of jumped on the Muncie bandwagon. So out of nowhere, what people thought there would be two high schools, there ended up just being the one. And then a guy by the name of Dr. Michael, who was a uh famous doctor in our area, lived in Muncie, he kind of got everybody calmed down and got them to agree to not put it in Muncie, which is where the Muncie people wanted, they thought they were gonna get this school, is to get it out in the country out to the side. So that is why Oakwood Township High School sits out in the country.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

So how did these how did they expect these students who were used to walking no more than a mile to school? How did they expect them to get to the high school?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Well, they were gonna walk. Uh the actual bus garage in the back was originally a stable. Okay, you could ride your horse and put it up there. But also conveniently the interurban had just started.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

And the the property that where the high school stands, it's to what we would all remember the railroad line that went there, but there was also an interurban line that ran between Danville and Urbana, you know, every two hours. So uh if you're coming from Oakwood, you could ride the interurban, dropped you off out there in front, and so did school that way.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

The young people, less than high school, they still went to their one room schoolhouse. Because I live I live near the Pollywags and on on Mission Field there was the Mission Field School, and um not even not even a half a mile away would be the interurban track where you could get from the Mission Field School if that's where you typically went to the interurban.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Right. So the the elementary kids are gonna go to the one rooms. The high school isn't for everyone. We said 35. There would have been a lot more high school age students in the area, but most kids did not go to high school at that time. I I know some people who lived in our area who sent their children to Danville.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

To go to Danville High School at the time, which is really developing their big modern high school that we know about. So and then we talked about that with Mr.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Denman right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

And they knew and they knew transportation was going to be difficult, so that's why they kind of surveyed and how many students.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Okay. So they build the they build this the new school on the property that was.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yeah, big two, big two-story uh block building. Uh if you drive around and see the old high schools around, you would see them. You know, Hennings still has the old building, Armstrong, Catlin still has these old buildings. That's what Oakwood High School had. It was a beautiful two-story building that sat on the hillside uh just east of Muncie on 150.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

In the place where it currently is. Currently sits. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Probably sits just a little slightly to the west of where the current building sits. But yeah, that's the location.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

So opening day.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Opening day is a tragedy. Uh it was supposed to open uh in 1916 on Monday would have been September 11th, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

So on the Friday, September 8th, beforehand, the principal who lived in Muncie and the three brand new teachers. And there were only three, because three teachers and the principal.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

They had a registration day on the Friday at the school? At the school. I suppose they met all the kids, or all the kids who were coming, came in, figured out whatever however they did that. And then at noon, they were going home. Or I think they were walking or going to go to the principal's house home in Muncie. In Muncie. I assume he would have some sort of lunch for them or whatever was going to happen. Um they were walking the interurban tracks to Muncie.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Okay. So they were headed west.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

They were headed west. And I as I tell my stu my high school students when I would teach this, is I they just could not comprehend how these people could be this stupid, but they were walking Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

My daughter was one of those.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah. They were walking the inurban tracks. And I think you have to remember back then things were noisy. There were trains, there's a coal mine in Muncie. I just think stuff was louder.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Well, and and what I've heard is there were multiple tracks.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

There are multiple tracks.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

One of them was for a freight train, correct?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

There are two freight train tracks there. Um the Big Four and the IBM W are both sitting right there, and then there's the inurban line. Normally they're a little farther apart from either, but in this area they get a little tighter, and these three teachers were walking home around noon on uh September the 8th, walking up the hill, a blind hill. Uh there is a Big Four uh freight train right there that's running very loud. They're not on its track, but it's right there, so they can't hear anything. The interurban comes up the hill, does not see them, hits all three of them. Oh, kills them instantly.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

So the entire faculty of Oakwood High School is gone before the day the year even starts. Oh my gosh. Um, so the principal has to, I I suppose there's probably lots of discussions, but what we know from the news story, what I know is the principal hires three new people.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Now, were these three teachers from the area?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

One was from Urbana, one was from Morrison, Illinois, and the other was from Wisconsin. So I think they're just hired, uh, could have been likely U of I students or normal uh Illinois State, what we call today, students, something like that. Um so I imagine they they may have been staying in months because uh I think Doc Michael had a couple of houses that he would let people board in.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Well, I g because I think you there's a tour that I believe they do um at Oakwood in fourth or fifth grade on a school bus with Sue Richter, the Vermillion County Museum director, and I think maybe you.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

I haven't done it lately, though.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

And they they drive around, and I remember um so my daughter was a member of the class of 2016, which was the hundredth anniversary. So it was an important story for them to be of the and when they were in fourth grade, they you know they heard this story, teachers were killed. And somehow it was in her mind that it was on that little bridge that's there just west of the school, and we've always looked at that bridge and went, you could jump, you because it's not that high.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

It's a little west or a little farther west than that, but it's it is hard to look at that today and fathom how that could have happened. But I think society was different.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Yeah, well, and not knowing there was another train track, it was loud, you didn't see you, you didn't know what was happening. That kind of I feel like Paul Harvey. Now that I know the rest of the story, this is supposed you've got three people who are unfamiliar with the area. Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

You know, some of the locals might have known, hey, be careful here.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Right. And there wasn't really a convenient road.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

No, the roads would have been a muddy mess. Well, there is a road there, but it's probably not easy. What we find if you look back a hundred years ago, people if they walk, they walk the railroad lines.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Because the railroad lines are elevated. You got out of the mud, right? Got in the roads, and there were fewer paved roads. It was so we walked the roads.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

So that makes sense. And and you have a picture here of just what the interurban looked like.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Um and and you know, it still looks pretty innocent, and you wonder how that would have happened, even looking at that picture there.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

But it it was just a different circumstance, a different time. So mm, they they hire new teachers, they finally get school underway.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yeah, I think at that point Oakwood High School finally feels like it's out from underneath uh these dark clouds, it seemed to have beginning, and things were fine. Um probably the next big event was the building of the gym during the depression. That gym is still one of the oldest in-use gyms in the state, varsity gyms.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Very, very steep bleachers.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

As you get older, it gets deeper and steeper.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

As a person who's always been afraid of heights, I think very steep.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

At the high school student, we ran up and down, there was no problem. And now it's our yeah. Uh that gym was considered state of the art at the time, and now we look at it, and you know, you can't believe we're still using it.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Um has it has a uh stage?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Has a stage, it's just kind of an unusual setup with the band room up top. It's very neat, but yeah. Um so in 1954, we they had just painted uh the halls in this big two-story block building, and in August of 54, a lightning bolt hits the building. Oh my goodness. And between the dust and the paint fumes, that building blows up, destroyed.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Luckily, no one died in that explosion.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Oh, good was it were people there?

SPEAKER_00 13:04

It'd been summertime. So over the night of summertime. School hadn't started yet.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Um, so but it did not destroy the gym.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

So the new building, the current building that we see today, uh, over the next three years was built. And in I think the clo uh 1958, August of 58, the new building was introduced and opened. So it took three years to get the new building. So, but they didn't stop school. They began to have classes in the gym and on stage. The shop rooms were still available, so wherever they could find, I think some a lot of students were allowed to go home at noon, you know, so they were just trying to find ways to keep education going, but without it.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

So and why is the the school is is that why then it's like a square around?

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Yeah, I think that was just sort of modern architecture to bring in more light to uh and expose single floor, you know, because the old the old buildings are not handicap accessible. Right. Those big two-story block buildings, much like we have here. Much like we have here. This campus. Yes. Uh so yeah, I think just that was just the architecture of the time.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Okay. So then um time moves on, and I I we were talking earlier, you and I both attended, at least for a little bit on my in my case, the Oakwood Grade School. So the the one room schoolhouses go by the wayside.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah. Once again, that was uh an example of the people of Oakwood wanting a new elementary building. There were one rooms all around. That actually led to some of the contention over the high school election. Was Oakwood's one room school tried to reach out into the neighboring areas like the Mission Field School, the Lake Shore School, some others all around, and tried to pull them in. And they won in b in one court ruling, but they lost in eventually, uh, and it really irritated the local people.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

So much so that um many of the surrounding school students never did go to an Oakwood grade school for like eighty years. Oh wow. Like the Lakeshore kids, if you know where Lakeshore is, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

And that's you say Lake.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

It's directly west, it's directly west of Oakwood on the first S curve.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Not there's nothing there now. Okay. But it's just where a one-room school was. That's called the community of Lakeshore. They can see Oakwood out their windows.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

They never went to Oakwood Grade School. They got so mad over Oakwood's overreach in the 1900s, early 1900s, they sent their kids to Muncie and Fifthian schools. And it wasn't until the 5ian grade school was shut down in the nine early 1990s, maybe late 1980s, that those students.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

I have to ask, why was there a place called Lake Shore when we don't have a lake or a shore?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Well, it it is a lake in terms it was a st standing body of water. It was a low area, what was called a sink in the prairie.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

So there was natural fauna and flora that you would find in uh lake areas, but it was just probably a couple inches deep. But this is those low lands that people didn't want to travel. And it took, you know, uh farmers getting modern technology to learn how to drain and tie all those areas that the lake disappears.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

So we go to the 1970s. Uh you and I attend a three-story brick building in Oakwood, and at the same time there is a grade school in Fithian.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

There were five grade schools. There was Muncie Grade School, Fithian had a grade school, Diamond had a grade school, Oakwood had a grade school, and Newtown had a grade school.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Newtown had a grade school.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

And those were all founded out of the one room schools. The communities began to the one room schools became inefficient. Uh transportation becomes easier. So these these schools sort of become collectives of the one rooms, and these uh attendance centers begin to grow. And then eventually, much like the one room schools close, school boards begin to realize that this is inefficient.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

So we begin to consolidate, but once again, this leads to uh hard feelings as people see their schools closed.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

So when I left Oakwood, I went to Indiana and I attended the Perrysville Grade School and then North Vermillion Cooperative School, high school. We were high school and junior high. And by the time I was in college, they even closed the three grade schools that fed into the high school, and we have the North Vermilion Grade School and the North Vermilion High School. Um, and you know, that was done. Legislators back in the 60s said this will happen all across the state of Indiana. Uh, it happened, they didn't get re-elected, but it happened, and we had great schools.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah, the school seemed But Illinois hasn't done much more modern, and um, you know, they were all able to bring people together and get rid of the one room and these these parochial local schools and and build one in center attendance areas, whatever whatever they chose. Yeah, the rumor is that all the legislators, none of them got none of them got reelected.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Uh but I had I had a tennis court and a swimming pool and the first all-weather track in the area. But um I had a superintendent back in the mid-90s tell me that the most difficult animal to hunt and kill in the state of Illinois is the school mascot.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Because that's, you know, everybody in their small town, the school mascot is their symbol.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah, we see that in consolidations that have happened already within the county, and there are some people who think we need to keep doing, keep going in, you know, further because our populations are dropping, enrollments are down. Um, but yeah, that is a fight that most board members and superintendents do not want to bring up, although there are probably lots of benefits.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Well, I know that it has happened several, I mean, it has been proposed several times for the Oakwood School District, even in the 30 years I've lived there.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Well, the big one was in '92 or ninety-three. There was a large election to combine Oakwood, Catelyn, and Jamaica schools. Right. And it would fail in all three districts. Eventually Catelyn and Jamaica would co-op athletics, which I think eased the way for the school to come together. But they had already tackled that mascot battle by combining that. Right. So that made the school uh consolidation easier.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

So my my husband's family is from Ridge Farm and his dad was the superintendent or not the superintendent, excuse me, the president of the school board at Ridge Farm when they did make dis make the decision to go with Georgetown. And then he became the the president of the combined school board for four years. My brother-in-law was the last eighth grade graduating class from Ridge Farm. And then he was the first freshman class uh of the combined Georgetown and Ridge Farm School District. And that was I mean, it was contentious. There were people Ridge Farm was tiny. My my husband had a graduating class of 24.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

I think always in that case, there's one group that feels like they're the left out school, they're the smaller one, or maybe they didn't get the school in their place. So I think there's always those feelings, rightly or wrongly.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

It's interesting. I I wonder if Salt Fork kind of looked at that and made the decision because they became Georgetown Ridge Farm, and Ridge Farm always says, Well, you know, people shorten it to just Georgetown or GRA. You know, we don't get Ridge Farm anymore. When Catelyn and Jamaica went together, they had a whole new name.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Salt Fork. Salt Fork.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

And and everybody could adopt it and be happy with it.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

New colors.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

New colors. And that's what that's what, you know, in in Indiana, we just went with counties. Yeah. And you had a north county and a south county, unless you happened to be in small enough. Some place that was a big city. You know, Terre Haute has its own, but there's still um. So when when did all of the um when did they consolidate because I know when um in the in the 2000s and the late 90s, Newtown became a middle school.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Yeah, that w the consolidation had already uh been done, I think the the school district is titled 76, unit 76. That's because it happened in 1976. Okay is when the actual consolidation occurred where we went underneath one district title high school and the Those grade schools.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

So since 76, there's been a slow churn of shutting down grade schools and consolidating buildings towards the city.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Everybody goes to Oakwood Grade School.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

And then the junior high, which was old Newtown Grade School, closed what three years ago. So we're really now two attendance centers. There's the high school, which is what we talked about, that side outside of town, and the grade school, which holds all of the Oakwood students.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

And the the old Oakwood grade school that we went to doesn't exist anymore.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

That footprint is hard to figure out. I walk in there and I think, how did this work?

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Because I I go into the what the is the old gym. We used to go in for I I think it became a cafeteria, and I would go in like I remember this gym, but I don't, and I remember the hallway right outside of it, but I do not remember the rest of this building.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Somebody was saying this, this is the old part. So no, that's not the old part. There's an even older, there's a couple older parts they've just added on.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

So all of this, I mean, Oakwood has fascinating history. We've got we've got some coal mines out at Kickapoo, and we've got the interurban and you know the high school and the story around that. You are um heading up one of the one of the things on the committee uh to do tours around the the entire county. So let's talk a little bit about the tours.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Yeah, we the one of the ideas when the committee started forming was uh a way to spread the word of the history of the county and kind of an expansion of what you used to do with the grade school. Yeah, uh at the high school. At the high school, I taught I taught freshmen for 20 years and we would do the local history tour, and the kids come up in me all the time, former students, and that seems to be the only thing they remember from the uh years of teaching them was remember the tour, Miss Lee? Yeah, I remember the tour. So I I'm always I enjoy that, but um so yeah, this was just an expansion. My brother's on the committee, and he he suggested we try this. So uh the tour then the Oakwood area tour is just expanded because I had more time. Uh so and from there we began to reach out and find experts, experts in other parts of the county.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Uh so we right now have five tours lined up, hopefully maybe another five more. Uh so the first one will be June 6th, and I will be doing the Oakwood tour starting at the fairgrounds. Uh if you want to go on the tour, you need to call the museum. Okay. I think there are still a few spots left on the Oakwood tour last time I heard.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

And these are nice buses, air conditioned.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

I haven't seen them yet, but I have been told we have hired a bus company to run these first five tours.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

So the Oakwood Tour is about a two-hour tour starting at the fairgrounds. We just drive around, there's two or three actual stops where we'll sit and talk about. The Oakwood tour is difficult because there's not a lot of things to see because they're gone.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

So we talk about the places and what might have happened here and try to let people visualize as much as we can. The second tour will be uh in Westville on June 13th, and I've heard that tour is full, and it'll be a fascinating tour through uh Westville and Belgium and down into Great Creek and Hallbuck and the mining area. Uh I've been on a preliminary tour there, so that's gonna be great. Uh June 20th is the Bismarck Tour, Bismarck and Rossville and Alvin. And Myersville. And Myersville. Oh, you've already talked to Larry.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

I've already talked to Larry.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

So we we've seen some of the preliminary information there, similar tour, and then uh July 18th will pick up again after the fourth holidays. Uh Linda Rosnet will be handing one that's gonna go I d Idenoland Sidel and Allerton. Okay, and she's got a great tour, which I I've heard is full because there's a lot of large uh houses right down in that area of the county that's old, old development in the county, and she has got found access to these. I think they're gonna go into some, they're gonna go in these drive, they're able to drive down these long lanes to see them. So that'll be a fascinating tour there.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

Linda used to work for the Sydell Reporter, and she made a whole lot of connections and has been in that area.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Linda and I are distant relatives, and well, I think she's already had the story in the Sydell Reporter, and that's what sold that tour out. So that's great to hear. Uh and then the last one we have is on July 25th. That's going to be Hoopston and Tom Sweeney, just a fount of information we have learned about Hoopson there.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

He's a target for a show. Yeah, you need to get Tom on here.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Uh so Tom's got a great tour. The problems Tom has had is winnowing down what he's going to talk about because he, I mean, he is just so excited about it that he's got a lengthy tour.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

He's done other tours for years. He's done stuff for our community.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Ed, it's been a great find for the committee to bring into.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Yes. So what does it cost?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Uh the cost is ten dollars.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Uh that's just basically to help cover the costs and everything, and to make sure you, if you're gonna sign up that you're actually there, call the museum. That's uh 217-442-2922. Just get your name put on the list.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Uh, and we have other tours we would like to do in the fall. In the fall. I don't know that we'll have uh a bus company. We might end up with school buses, but we are looking at Catlin and Fairmount, maybe putting maybe even including Tilton in that one. Uh Potomac, Armstrong, Collison, Higginsville, maybe Kinnecuck Park is one. Um we're also looking at uh a Rankin, Eastland, Cheneyville up there on the northwest corner of the county, uh Georgetown Ridge Farm, Olivet for Maine Grove. So we're trying to get to all these parts of the county. We think they're fascinating, but I d I I don't have the knowledge of the thing.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Are we also looking for people who have the knowledge to run those tours?

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Someone has an interest in it and uh passions may be a strong word, but an interest in it and wants to be able to share, we would love to bring them in and hear more.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

And actual facts. That's the one thing that we're kind of you know. Well there's lots of legends. We're gonna tell a few legends on the tour too, yeah. Uh but that's just again call the museum. If you have an interest, if you have um a passion for it and knowledge of a particular area, or if you know someone who you'd say, right, that person would be great for you. We would love to hear that, and uh we'll reach out and you don't necessarily have to be the person who leads the tour, you could just give us the information, but gosh, we would find a way tour guides and we will help you set up the tours, plan a route, do some research so that way we know what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

You don't have to know everything, but you have if you have an insight and a feel for your community, right? That's who we'd like to lean on.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Because I I while I know a little, I just can't go to Myersville and tell you right everything that Larry knows. Yes, and Tom Sweeney and Linda. So we want to find those people in these communities.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

And there's generally somebody in every community who has been the depository of the town's stories.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Well, I think in talking to my brother Todd about this, that's what we have found has been fun about all these meetings is we are finding these people. The the museum, the main county museum, is finding these local experts and bringing them in to help tell the stories.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

And that's and that's great because um, you know, next year is Danville's 200th, and and we love to talk about Danville, and definitely it is the you know, the retail hub and and employment hub of our county. But uh but the little towns, they they have personality of their own and some really interesting stories to tell.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Well, I'm glad you bring up Danville because that's what also the committee has discussed is hey, where's the Danville tour? Right. We've decided to wait on that till next year since Danville's anniversary. Uh and then I think you'll see maybe multiple tours of Danville, maybe an industrial tour, maybe an educational tour that maybe Mr. Denman would lead or something. So uh we can see a lot of different things that we could talk about on that tour.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Yeah. Well, Tim, this has been fascinating. I um of course I'm like I said, I was in Oakwood as a young person. I came back to Oakwood as an adult. My daughter came through Oakwood. Um I love the stories. Uh the the the story about the teachers, though tragic, has always fascinated our our particular family. Um and I really appreciate your visit today. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

I've enjoyed it, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

And thank you for joining us on VC History.