This week, I posed this assignment to my siblings:
In light of the collapse of Silver King School, let’s share a story involving Silver King School.
Of the three siblings, I was never a student at Silver King School. But I do remember times of being in the building throughout my growing up years.
These memories come in little snippets...I remember little things about Silver King.
Mom would go out to work in her room on the weekends, and I would go out with her. Her room was the last room on the south end of the school, on the west side. There was a coat room outside the room, and the room had lots of windows.
But I didn't spend a lot of time in her room. I spent time walking around the building exploring and playing.
Some time was spent in the gym. To get to the gym, you walked down the hallway, and made a right turn past the teacher's lounge, and went down a ramp. The ramp had carpet down the middle, but the edges had linoleum on them. Once in the gym, I could take out balls, and jumpropes and climb the rope that hung from the ceiling. But I didn't know how to turn the light on in the gym, so I remember it could get a little creepy down there if the light wasn't good.
Sometimes Mom would have to go up into the attic, which had turned from the school lunch room to a storage room. I'm not sure what she stored up there, perhaps an aquarium for a new batch of fish in her room, or a large box she used each Valentine's Day as a post office to distribute valentines.
Another room I would go to sometimes to help Mom out with work was the teacher work room. This was a small room filled with cabinets of paper, and the ditto machine. Before copy machines, teachers typed their lessons on on a purple form that was then put on a ditto machine and a handle was turned and purple inked copies came out. An important element to the whole process was the ditto fluid, which had a very distinctive smell. I often got to use the ditto machine to help Mom make copies.
Sometimes I would wander through the small library at the school and look for books to read.
Once a year, the Silver King PTA would have a chili feed to raise money for the school. I remember attending many of those dinners in the cafeteria at Silver King School.
I remember also being involved in another Silver King PTA fund-raiser, but this time it was during the summer at a celebration in Smelterville called Frontier Days. Smelterville used to have Ferd Stadium, located kind of east of where Walmart is now. Once a year, Smelterville would celebrate Frontier Days, with a carnival, parade and rodeo and demolition derby. And lots of drinking. One year I remember the PTA had a booth under the grandstands of Ferd Stadium during either a rodeo or demolition derby, and sold corn dogs. I remember helping sell for a few hours during the alloted time Mom signed up to help at the booth.
Every year, like other schools in the district, Silver King School would have a Christmas program in the gym. One year I got to go and help Mrs. Williams, the music teacher, turn pages on the music. When I got to junior high, and joined many of those students who had been a part of that Christmas program, they remembered me being there to help at the Christmas program. I'm thinking I was in fourth or fifth grade that year.
My final memories of Silver King School, are not ones I am particularly proud of. The summer after I graduated from high school, I was employed by the Kellogg School District as on of the cleaning crew. Back when the school district had money, they would hire students in the summer to help the custodians clean the different schools, and do other jobs around the district like painting or other kinds of custodial duties.
During the summer of 1981, there was a possibility that Silver King School was going to be closed, so a crew was need to go and clean the building that summer.
There were a few flaws in the whole set up of the working arrangment that summer.
The first was our hours we worked changed that summer. Instead of working 7:30-3:30 five days a week, our hours were changed from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., four days a week. So I would get picked up around 5:45 a.m. each morning to go to work, which was going to Silver King School.
Unfortunately, we had no adult supervision at Silver King School. Because either the school had already been closed, or was going to be closed, so there wasn't a regular custodial crew at the school. So the powers that be at the school district decided to have one of the kids in charge of a crew of four other student workers. This was not a great idea.
So, because we had no real supervision, we would arrive at work, haul out the cots from the nurses office, and sleep until about 7 a.m. I really don't remember doing a lot of work out there. Maybe we just cleaned the floors or something. I do remember two of my fellow workers going out in the parking lot in a car at lunch time and smoking pot. Again, this was easy to do because of the lack of supervision. And Silver King was set up in such a way with a hugh window in the front that you could have someone on lookout watching for the special school district brown truck to come up the road, and when someone yelled "Brown's On", you knew you had better get to work.
I don't think we were at the school for very long that summer. One thing that sticks out in my mind is drinking Constant Comment tea that was in the faculty lounge. Everytime I see or smell that orangy smelling tea, I think of Silver King School.
Smells always seem to invoke vivid memories for me.
But now the smells are gone. The building has collapsed. I'm not sure the fate of the school, but I'm sure it isn't good. And now there are only the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches of Silver King that linger in our minds.
Showing posts with label Silver King School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silver King School. Show all posts
1/12/08
Silver King School Collapses
Silver King School, outside of Smelterville, Idaho, collapsed under heavy snow on Friday, Jan. 11.It was very sad waking up and looking at the morning's newspaper to find the picture above. It is a picture of Silver King School collapsed. It happened yesterday.
According to the article, the building collapsed due to heavy snow on the roof. The front part of the building, where the gym was, was totally gone. Two transportation workers were injured in the collapse while trying to escape the trailer where the transportation office is. The car of one of these workers was smashed under the rubble.
If you have been reading my blog, and my sibling's blogs over the past year, you know that Silver King School played an important part in our lives growing up. Our mother taught there for many years. My brother-in-law Kent was also a student there.
The picture is sad to look at, and they will probably have to tear the whole building down now because of the damage.
A sad, sad day.
4/1/07
The Sights and Smells of the school in the shadow of the Bunker Hill Zinc Plant
My mother was a teacher at Silver King School from the time I was born until I left Sunnyside Elementary in 1975. I entered 7th grade at Kellogg Junior High School. Mom moved to Sunnyside to teach.
My assignment for my siblings Raymond Pert and Inland Empire Girl was to share some memories about Silver King School. I was the only sibling who never attended the school as a student.
My memories are from the visits I would take when Mom would go out to get some work done at the school on the weekends. Silver King School was located at the base of Government Gulch between Smelterville and Kellogg. Above the school was the Zinc Plant,and to the east of the school was the Bunker Hill Smelter. Both were large sources of pollution and toxic waste in the valley. And Silver King School was at the center of it all.
By the time I remember visiting the school with Mom, I don't think the creek running along side of the school was quite as toxic. Raymond Pert remembers losing balls into the creek, and not being able to retreive them.
Visits to the school with Mom gave me lots of time to wander around the school. Often I would head to the gym and open up the equipment closet and get out the P.E. equipment and play with it. But it was a little creepy down in the gym all alone, so, if it was too dark, I didn't stay long.
Going down to the gym was fun, because you went down a long carpeted ramp. But on the edges it was still tiled floor. On this part, you could sit on your butt and slide down the ramp. That was the fun part.
One of the very unique sights of Silver King School was the big window on the north end of the building. The window had bottles of colored water in each section of the window. I wonder whose idea it was to decorate that window in that manner?
The gym was always kind of creepy, but the really creepy part of Silver King School was the attic. During mom's time as a teacher at the school, this was used as a storage room for items they didn't use all the time. Originally, I believe it was the school's cafeteria before the new part of the school was added. Sometimes I would accompany Mom up to the dark attic to find some Christmas decorations or possibly a fish tank that was stored up there.
One area of the school that always had a unique smell was the faculty room. I remember it being a combination of cigarette smoke and the citrusy scent of Constant Comment Tea. Years later, while employed by the school district in the summer to help clean the school, the faculty room still held that unique odor.
One year while I was still in grade school at Sunnyside Elementary, I had the honor of helping out at the Silver King Christmas program by being the page turner for Mrs. Williams, the music teacher. I felt very special. I must have looked pretty cute, because years later, when I attended junior high and high school with those Silver King students, some of the boys confessed they had a crush on me after seeing me at that program.
For a fund-raiser each year, the Silver King PTA would have a Chili Feed in the cafeteria. Each year we faithfully attended. I also remember another PTA fund-raiser during the summer was having a booth during Frontier Days in Smelterville. I remember being in a booth located under the grandstand at Ferd Stadium. The PTA sold corn dogs during the rodeo and the demolition derby. (They may have sold other things, but I remember the corn dogs.)
Yesterday we traveled up to Silver King and it is sad to see the old school in such disrepair. I know the local school district is determining whether it needs to be torn down, or if parts of the school are still usable. It was also interesting driving up to the end of Government Gulch and seeing some of the buildings from the Zinc Plant up there.
That whole area holds many memories for me and for my family. Dad worked at the Zinc Plant for years. Mom worked at Silver King School. My brother and sister attended Silver King School. I worked at that school one summer helping to clean the building. My husband lived in a house in Silver King as a child.
And my famly wasn't without its casualties because of the Silver King area. My dad's death was directly related to the asbestosis he contracted from his long term exposure to asbestos while working at the Zinc Plant.
Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999, and we believe there is a strong tie to her cancer and her working environment at Silver King School. She was one of many teachers who taught at Silver King School that battled cancer. Mom won her battle. Others weren't so lucky.
My brother fell to the bottom of a roaster at the Zinc Plant in 1973 and almost died. He temporarily lost his sight and has had problems with his lungs ever since the accident.
But, despite the casualities, I love living in the Silver Valley, of having a father who worked for the Zinc Plant, and a mother who was a gifted teacher who taught hundreds of students at Silver King School.
My siblings and I all feel this way. Perhaps it was the sense of pride our dad had in this area. I'm not sure. And I'm not sure we have to come up with a reason. I think just loving it here is good enough.
My assignment for my siblings Raymond Pert and Inland Empire Girl was to share some memories about Silver King School. I was the only sibling who never attended the school as a student.
My memories are from the visits I would take when Mom would go out to get some work done at the school on the weekends. Silver King School was located at the base of Government Gulch between Smelterville and Kellogg. Above the school was the Zinc Plant,and to the east of the school was the Bunker Hill Smelter. Both were large sources of pollution and toxic waste in the valley. And Silver King School was at the center of it all.
By the time I remember visiting the school with Mom, I don't think the creek running along side of the school was quite as toxic. Raymond Pert remembers losing balls into the creek, and not being able to retreive them.
Visits to the school with Mom gave me lots of time to wander around the school. Often I would head to the gym and open up the equipment closet and get out the P.E. equipment and play with it. But it was a little creepy down in the gym all alone, so, if it was too dark, I didn't stay long.
Going down to the gym was fun, because you went down a long carpeted ramp. But on the edges it was still tiled floor. On this part, you could sit on your butt and slide down the ramp. That was the fun part.
One of the very unique sights of Silver King School was the big window on the north end of the building. The window had bottles of colored water in each section of the window. I wonder whose idea it was to decorate that window in that manner?
The gym was always kind of creepy, but the really creepy part of Silver King School was the attic. During mom's time as a teacher at the school, this was used as a storage room for items they didn't use all the time. Originally, I believe it was the school's cafeteria before the new part of the school was added. Sometimes I would accompany Mom up to the dark attic to find some Christmas decorations or possibly a fish tank that was stored up there.
One area of the school that always had a unique smell was the faculty room. I remember it being a combination of cigarette smoke and the citrusy scent of Constant Comment Tea. Years later, while employed by the school district in the summer to help clean the school, the faculty room still held that unique odor.
One year while I was still in grade school at Sunnyside Elementary, I had the honor of helping out at the Silver King Christmas program by being the page turner for Mrs. Williams, the music teacher. I felt very special. I must have looked pretty cute, because years later, when I attended junior high and high school with those Silver King students, some of the boys confessed they had a crush on me after seeing me at that program.
For a fund-raiser each year, the Silver King PTA would have a Chili Feed in the cafeteria. Each year we faithfully attended. I also remember another PTA fund-raiser during the summer was having a booth during Frontier Days in Smelterville. I remember being in a booth located under the grandstand at Ferd Stadium. The PTA sold corn dogs during the rodeo and the demolition derby. (They may have sold other things, but I remember the corn dogs.)
Yesterday we traveled up to Silver King and it is sad to see the old school in such disrepair. I know the local school district is determining whether it needs to be torn down, or if parts of the school are still usable. It was also interesting driving up to the end of Government Gulch and seeing some of the buildings from the Zinc Plant up there.
That whole area holds many memories for me and for my family. Dad worked at the Zinc Plant for years. Mom worked at Silver King School. My brother and sister attended Silver King School. I worked at that school one summer helping to clean the building. My husband lived in a house in Silver King as a child.
And my famly wasn't without its casualties because of the Silver King area. My dad's death was directly related to the asbestosis he contracted from his long term exposure to asbestos while working at the Zinc Plant.
Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999, and we believe there is a strong tie to her cancer and her working environment at Silver King School. She was one of many teachers who taught at Silver King School that battled cancer. Mom won her battle. Others weren't so lucky.
My brother fell to the bottom of a roaster at the Zinc Plant in 1973 and almost died. He temporarily lost his sight and has had problems with his lungs ever since the accident.
But, despite the casualities, I love living in the Silver Valley, of having a father who worked for the Zinc Plant, and a mother who was a gifted teacher who taught hundreds of students at Silver King School.
My siblings and I all feel this way. Perhaps it was the sense of pride our dad had in this area. I'm not sure. And I'm not sure we have to come up with a reason. I think just loving it here is good enough.
After PKR and I were married, we always knew we would end up in the Silver Valley. It wasn't a plan or a goal we were working towards, it was a gut feeling we both had that someday we would return to the Silver Valley and live. And in 2000 it happened. We moved back. And we haven't regretted the move a bit.
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