Culver School History 1950 - 1959  

19_ Principle - Raymond "Doc" Ives, Jr.

1950 - March 29 - School Officials Retaining Bradley as Architect for the New Grade Building

1950 - May - Graduates - Anna Mae Altheide, Denzil Dean Baker, Gawendolyn Joan Barnes, Shirley Ann Ellam, Morris R. Fishburn, Robert Russell Flors, James Thomas Harper, Virginia Sue Kovacs, George A. Listenberger, Miriam Elaine Lowry, Mpaul E. Lucas, Dalia Ann McCarthy, Vern B. McKee, Ernest E. Martin, Ritchie Dean Mikesell, Wayne Starr Miller, Allen Ray Morris, Ruth Alice Neidlinger, Frances Eve Pettis, Glen Edward Schrimsher, Stanley Matthew Sikora, Albert Sytsma Jr., Paul Ellsworth Triplet, Fay Ellen Weiger, Alice Jean Wilson, Rebecca Winn and Walter Hewitt Wise.

1956 - Oct 25 - It is interesting to not that the State Board of Education mandadted the amount of land the a school had to have and that it was to be On acre per 100 enrollment -

There has been some undue caustic comment regarding the purchase of land. Briefly this is the story, the site occupied by the presentt high school and elementary school is 4.4 acres

About three years ago, following approval by the Advisory Board, and after legally notifying the taxpayers, the township purchased from the Methodist Church approximately three-fourths acres of land.

On Nov. 18. 1949, due to a requirement et up by the Division of School House Planning, and upon approval by the Advisory Board, a plot of ground 6.2 acres located northwest of the presemt school ground was purchased.

It should be noted that the Indiana State Assembly In 1949 empowered the State Board of Education to establish a Department of School Buildings and School Grounds.

In 1952 the old high school of 1906 which had been used as the elementary from about 1921 was razed except for the basement area the so called "tunnel" so many of us remember. Ground was broken for a new grade school building on the area just north of the high school. More on the construction here.

1952 - Jan 9 - Current operating costs per pupil for Marshall counrty schools for the 19950-1951 school year was $210.

It was dedicated on Tuesday Evening, November 17, 1952

Therefore when we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight…not for present use alone. Let it be such a work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time will come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands touched them or that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."

- John Ruskin, Copy of the dedication booklet for the new elementary building.



1954 - 17 March Culver Citizen - Raymond J. Ives jr. is named to succeed Floyd M. Annis as principal of the Culver public schools. M. R. Robinson is named as assistant pricipal.

1957 - September 10 – New School cafeteria, completely equipped, starts serving hot lunches.

1959 – State School Reorganization Law enacted. The Indiana General Assembly passed the Indiana School Reorganization Act of 1959 [ Acts 1959, ch. 202 as amended, Burns IND. STAT. ANN. 28-6101 to 28-6131.] t hat requires school districts with fewer than 2,000 students to consolidate with nearby districts.

This forced all the smaller schools to consolidate and had a huge effect on all of the small communities that dotted Indiana - forming the school systems of today. One of the Indiana lawyers from Indianapolis who helped draft the act was Lew Bose. This act required that all schools within the state of Indiana be organized into single unit school corporations of at least one thousand students in attendance

Some historians have called Indiana 's 1959 School Reorganization Act the most significant piece of legislation in the 20th Century. It may have changed education for the better- even though that, too, is debatable, but it altered small towns and high school basketball even more

The School Reorganization Act of 1959 was passed by the General Assembly, State of Indiana, to accommodated the population boom and provide a better education for our children. This began a whirlwind throughout the state of eorganizations and consolidations.

As mandated by the reorganization act, a committee had to be established to conduct the reorganization proceedings

With passage of the School Corporation Reorganization Act of 1959, some 10 years later, the state mandated local school reorganization study committees in each county with the purpose -- more successful in some counties than others -- of gaining added consolidation compliance. By 1968, the number of school districts statewide had been reduced additionally from 939 to 382

If one could find - The School Corporation Reorganization Act of 1959 statutes Indiana. Laws (etc) Indiana Farm Bureau, Incorporated, 1959

Its effort was to raise educational standards. That decreased the number of small schools

1959 - March 18 Junior woman's Olub plans to erect a bicycle rack at the school Which will be moved each summer to the town park.

Culver Union Twp. School has for many years been under the age-old Twp. trustee system with the top professional administrator a County Superintendent of schools. Culver's situation was some what unique in that it was a consolidation of a town and twp. under the auspices of the elected twp. trustee.

As is recorded in school history, the legislature in 1959 passed the Indiana School Reorganization Act in 1959 which invited many small schools to incorporate as larger schools. This was to be directed by a county committee for reorganization.