File:Lorane Elementary School.JPG

English: The present Lorane Elementary School was built in the early 1920s, and later consolidated several smaller schools in the valley including the Letz Creek School, the Green Door School, the Cartwright School and the Lone Cedar School. The school was built in the shape of a “U” with four classrooms, a library, a health room and two restrooms surrounding an open play shed on three sides. The play shed, at first, had a dirt floor and the back wall was wire screening. Wooden flooring for the playshed was added in 1950. This play shed encompassed the area now used as the library, auditorium, and store room. In the beginning, the library was located in the present office.

The playground equipment included swings, teeter-totters, gliders and later, a merry-go-round, belonging to the Lone Cedar School was added when that district consolidated with Lorane. On May 17, 1937, the Letz Creek School District #37 consolidated with the Lorane School District #36. On October 11, 1937, William Albright was paid $10 per month and was given the use of the old Letz Creek School building by the Lorane School District in return for transporting some of the children in that area to the Lorane Elementary School. By December of that year, a bus was routed to go to Letz Creek Road. For a short period in 1937 and 1938, soup was fixed at the Frank Davis house and was carried to the grade school each noon hour for lunch for the students. Lunch was eaten in the library and each student brought his own bowl and spoon from home. As the students finished and filed out of the room, they were each allowed to take grapefruit or dried apricots from a large metal washtub set near the door to be eaten for dessert. In 1941, the seventh and eighth grades were moved to the high school. On August 16, 1943, the Lorane School Board agreed to trade the 5-acre ball diamond lot for two acres adjoining the north side of the grade school owned by Mr. Oglesby. A week later, the district bought a lot adjoining the watershed for $300 from Mr. G.W. Woodward. Before a well was dug for the school, drinking water was brought through pipes from a spring located in the hills behind it; hence, the watershed. The well was dug sometime later. In 1944, teachers and principals were given a 16 2/3% salary increase, bringing the annual salary of the high school principal to $2,800. The high school teachers received $2,100, the grade school principal, $2,000 and $1,800 per year for the grade school teachers. In 1946, the school district paid 17 cents per gallon for high octane Richfield gasoline. The cafeteria was added in about 1948, as a community project. Patrons of the school district volunteered materials and labor. The hillside had to be dug out using picks and shovels. The dirt was loaded into wheelbarrows and hauled away. The foundation was laid and the addition was erected using donated lumber and concrete. The only person paid for the work he did was the man who poured the concrete. When the cafeteria was completed, women of the district gathered in it to prepare and preserve a huge variety of canned fruits and vegetables into half gallon jars to be used by the school for its school lunches. All of the labor, jars and produce used were once again donated by members of the community. On December 5, 1949, the porch was authorized to be built over the front of the cafeteria entrance. In 1950, the school district and the Lorane P.T.A. went together to purchase a brand new merry-go-round for the playground. A four-room addition, now used by the primary grades, was approved by the Lorane School Board on January 12, 1953. On May 18, 1953, a $55,000 bond issue was approved. Sixteen hundred feet of panel fencing was added to the school grounds in late 1954, following the building of the new addition. In approximately 1956, a new gymnasium was built for the school. It was built in time to accommodate the added usage it was to receive by the 7th and 8th graders who were once again transferred to the elementary school following the closure of the high school in 1958. When the Lorane and Crow school districts were consolidated into the Crow-Applegate-Lorane School District #66, Edward Cooper, the former Crow School District head, was retained as superintendent. After serving 24 years as school superintendent, he retired in 1977. Michael Costello was then named to the post. He served as superintendent until his resignation in 1980. It was at that time that Richard H. Beebe was hired as superintendent for the school district. He had been a teacher and principal of the district for 21 years prior to becoming superintendent. He passed away in 1989. With the passing of Richard H. “Dick” Beebe, the people of the Crow-Applegate-Lorane School District lost not only a fine administrator, but a mentor and friend, as well. Following Dick’s death, Ed Miller was appointed interim superintendent until Dan Barker was hired as superintendent in 1990. After Dan’s departure, Richard Jones served as the interim superintendent. Due to the limitations put on school funding, the school district opted to then hire a part-time administrator. Dr. Eileen Palmer was hired in 2002 to fill that position. A privately-run kindergarten at Lorane was first taught in the old high school building where Jean Walters and her husband Clair lived for awhile after the school’s closure. Jean was the kindergarten teacher for the 1964 and 1965 school years. It is then believed that Patty Davis took over the teaching duties in the Lorane Christian Church after the high school had been condemned and the Walters moved to Crow. Garda Jentzsch taught kindergarten in the church for the 1967 and 1968 school years. Kindergarten was then housed in the elementary school building from 1970 until the district established a kindergarten program in 1984. Those kindergarten teachers remembered are Emily Coughlin, Winona Bergstrom, Patty McCabe, Karen Grover and Debbie Clark. During the years of the privately run kindergarten, parents of the students collectively hired the teacher. Georgann Squire, a former third grade teacher at the Lorane Elementary, was the first kindergarten teacher hired at Lorane under the district-sponsored program. In 1984, the CroLane Junior High School was restructured by the school board as a middle school. The 6th grade classes of Lorane and Applegate schools were moved to CroLane, and each elementary school included kindergarten through 5th grades. The school district was forced to restructure and the 6th grades were once again made part of the elementary schools. In 2002, to save the district from making a painful decision to either close one of the elementary schools or to consolidate with nearby school districts, the 7th and 8th grades were transferred to the Crow High School, and the part of the building once used by the CroLane Middle School was closed. In addition, classes in the elementary schools were combined to save additional money previously earmarked for teachers’ salaries.

In 2011, the decision was made to close the Lorane Elementary School for good. All Lorane students now attend Applegate Elementary School in Crow, Oregon. At this writing, the Lorane community is working to obtain the building from the Crow-Applegate-Lorane School District for community use.