Okay, so here’s one for ya. The Char-Koosta News reports on the closing of the closing of the Camas Prairie School after seventy years. So, yeah, it was only a matter of time and they were down to three students this year but you have to admit that it brings a bit of a tear. I know most of you have been by the old dilapidated school out there between Hot Springs and Perma and wondered how they could keep it going out in the Lake Missoula outwash. Coming down off Merkle Hill and out across the flats, the old school is the only real landmark in the valley.

I hope they do come up with a good use for the building. It would really be sad to see it just crumble over the years. It will be just another of those old landmarks that are spread all over Montana. One of those places that set you to wondering as you whiz by at seventy miles per on your way to someplace important. What a joyful place to hold community gatherings. Now the three students are off to the hectic life in the big cities of Hot Springs and Ronan.

One of the current students described it like this:

“Do you know what’s going to happen? That school is going to shut down forever,” says Reefus, who is one of three of the last students to attend the school. “I went to that school my whole life and now I’m going to Ronan. It’s going to be a little bit scary because Ronan has so many kids and it’s only been us three.”

Scary Indeed. Take heart Reefus, we’ll all miss it even those of us to whom it was just a passing landmark.

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