28-02-2025
Drama based on real-life presented as Orient-Macksburg Schools closes
ORIENT, Iowa — The school board at Orient Macksburg has voted to close the school after this year due to low enrollment.
'The school is closing due to decline enrollment we have 87 kids in K-12 in the seats right now, said Dan Grandfield, Orient-Macksburg Principal. 'That cannot sustain, we're gonna be negative balance, so we can't sustain a building anymore or a district.'
The district will enter into whole-grade sharing with nearby Nodaway Valley Schools in Greenfield. Some students will attend classes in Creston, and Diagonal.
Most of the teachers are still seeking employment for next year. Many of the faculty had plans to work at this district until they were ready to retire.
With the last season of Reader's Theater at the school this year, they decided it would be great to make this real-life story into a dramatic production.
Kendra Breitsprecher, the Orient-Macksburg Speech Teacher, wrote a script centered around a letter jacket. It was called the 'Last Letter Jacket.' The lead in the production was played by Carter Osborne. The idea that as the only senior in her class she would be the last one to wear a letter jacket from the school. Actually, that was part of the script according to Osborne. She said a couple more seniors joined the school after the script was written, so technically she was not the only senior.
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Also due to Iowa High School Speech Association, the performance merited all one ratings, and the team was named to the All-State Speech Team, a high honor, like making the football playoffs. The rules of that group did not allow a school name, or colors to be used in the state competition.
'I don't think I realized that it was going to be so important to the community until our first performance for the teachers,' said Breitsprecher. 'We had an in-service one day and the teachers came up to watch it, and the teachers started crying.'
Other groups which have seen the production also shed a tear or two.
'This goes through the story and saying I will be the last to graduate here,' said Carter Osborne, a senior at Orient Macksburg. 'We can't say our name so we say Anytown High, but and then it goes to my grandma's story of when she was there, and then my grandpa's story and then my mom's story.'
The production concludes with a list of all the positives and one negative on rural schools, and poses the questions, why are so many rural schools closing?
You can watch the production The Last Letter Jacket, here on the Orient Macksburg Facebook page.
The Orient- Macksburg will ask voters on March 3rd if the District should dissolve. Either way there will be no school here this coming fall, that decision was made by the school board.
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