Sprig of a School Harvests Some Tall Prizes

For the 52 students who make up the entire student population of Elk Creek High School, size--or lack of it--can have its advantages.

As Principal Earnie Graham, 35, points out, those students who go out for varsity sports--Elk Creek is the smallest high school in the state to field an 11-man football team--are assured of a place on the team of their choice, as well as generous playing time.

And there are always enough student government offices to go around.

Perhaps best of all, noted Chad Langford, a 16-year-old junior, “you learn a lot more here. It’s like having teachers that are private tutors.” Chad shares a general science class with one freshman, two sophomores and two other juniors.

In an adjacent classroom two students, Matt Danforth, 15, and Neil Cooley, 18, were studying algebra.

The average class size at Elk Creek is 7.8 students. There are nine teachers. This year’s graduating class has nine boys and six girls. Most students are children of ranchers, farmers and loggers living within 30 miles of the school in the open country in Glenn County in Northern California.

The campus also has its extracurricular accomplishments.

For six of the last nine years--including the last three in a row--Elk Creek High has won the Future Farmers of America state forestry championship.

Of the two dozen schools in the competition, Elk Creek is always the smallest. It competes head on with large schools from cities such as Fresno and Santa Rosa.

Winners of the state championship compete each year in the national FFA forestry finals in Kansas City, Mo. Last November, Elk Creek High, representing California, placed 11th among the four-member teams from 32 states.

And every time Elk Creek High School has been in the national competition it has been the smallest school.

Ralph Brown, 43, a teacher at the school for 19 years and head of the forestry program, told how students chopped 30 cords of wood and residents for miles around pitched in to raise the $2,000 needed for the trip to Kansas City.

“We won the state because we’re able to identify over 100 trees, plants and shrubs growing here in California, but when we go to the nationals we’re asked to identify eastern flora we’ve never heard of or never seen before. That’s why we still haven’t won the nationals,” said Gary (Buzz) Brummet, 16, a junior and one of four students competing in the nationals last November.

In addition to identifying plants and trees,the students used forestry tools to measure heights and diameters of standing trees from the ground level, determined the board-foot potential forlogs, surveyed maps and performed other forestry skills.

The school is special for teachers, too.

“I came here four years ago from a high school in Riverside with 1,700 students to see what it would be like to teach in a small rural setting,” said teacher Larry Payne, 47.

“There are few disciplinary problems here. There is no vandalism. Students are too busy with their schoolwork, with sports, clubs and all the other activity going on here to get in trouble. This is the busiest school I have ever seen.”