About

Your Volunteer Board (2022)

President – Nancy Kuta
Vice President – Don Davidson
Treasurer – Jan Gregg
Secretary – Claire Bunney
Rental Manager – Karan Godman
Eric Burr
Libby Hillis
Jerry Laverty
Claire LeDuc
Will Long
Marian Osborne
Tracy Ross
Linda Schoemaker

MCC History

Mazama School was built in 1921. Blanche Stewart was the teacher. Interestingly, her contract stated that if she were to marry her teaching contract would be “null and void” The school used 8 cords of wood per winter.

Prior to 1921 Mazama youngsters attended school at a log school on the Cassel property near the Goat Wall or commuted to the McKinney Mt School built in 1910. The Mt McKinney School was located across highway 20 from PJ’s little red house…all that is left on the site is a lone apple tree. The McKinney Mt School had, in some years during the 20’s, up to forty students. Their fathers were employed at the Fender Mill. The Fender Mill went belly up in about 1937, the school enrollment depleted and the school was abandoned.

In 1937 the school board and the county arranged to have the Lost River Road, then called Goat Creek Road, plowed consistently during the winter up to Robinson Creek. Buck Therriault had the plowing contract. The school district committed to running a school bus to pick up the 12 students along the road or, conversely, if a minimum of 12 students wanted to attend the Mazama School the board would keep the school open and provide a teacher. The parents of five children decided that they would prefer to have their children bused to Winthrop leaving only six/seven children enrolled in Mazama. So the school was closed.

Perhaps the belief of the parents that their children would get a better education in Winthrop was justified. Below is a photo of the Mazama student body circa 1924. Sixteen students grades one through 8 with a single teacher. (Having been a teacher I can imagine the challenge that represented.) That same year, the grade 1-8 teacher at the Rockview School who had 40 grade one-eight students in one room had a nervous breakdown and had to be replaced.