Vader? Really?

Vader’s former school has once again popped into the headlines, now that the taxpayers might be off the hook for taxes. 


Here’s my timeline, from the VanTuyl morgue, on the Vader saga. It dates back to my second month on the job. 

November, 2005: Vader needs a new gym. “It may have met the codes in 1929, but does not meet the codes of 2005,” said architect John Crook, who designed the never-to-be-built new gym and reportedly threw up a little bit, in his mouth, when he toured the old basketball court. 

December, 2005: Local kids, checking the premises one last time, find Blackbeard’s gold buried beneath the ancient gym and, amazingly, the kids bail out the parents (Goonies, anyone?) and save the day. Not really, but the county condemned the building and chained it up for good. I took the last shot ever on the Vader basketball court. 





February, 2006: The first of three levy-bond measures fail. Strike one. The school board decides to tear down the gym. 

March, 2006: “Why does this feel like Bill O’Reilly?” Crook jokes at a meeting about the future of the school. Tempers flare, and the school board votes later that month to run the same bond and levy that failed in the last paragraph.


May, 2006: Vader passes an audit with no findings. The state, however, wants to know how a school with a $12,000 general fund is going to pay for the $50,000 removal of a condemned gym. Parents join the kids in digging for Blackbeard’s gold. Later that month, the levy falls about 20 votes short of passing. The bond falls a lot shorter of the half-century mark. Recess is held in the hallway.


June, 2006: The board makes staff cuts, chopping out hours from four classified employees and revoking cost of living adjustments. Vader merchants decline to return the favor and the price of milk rises to an unattainable $2.99 a gallon.


July, 2006: Chuck Hole, the ESD official with the funniest name in history, tries to help the school straighten out their budget problems. With $195,000 immediately cut from the budget with the levy failure, the rest of Lewis County begins referring to Vader as “one big Chuck Hole.” 

September, 2006: ESD Assistant Superintendent John Molohon attends a meeting, essentially telling the board that they have no money. Figures show the school will end the 2006-07 year with negative $24,000. Without a hilarious name to district audience members, Molohon resorts to a monotone, but witty, repertoire, consisting entirely of “You’re broke.”



November, 2006: The gym gets torn down, ending dreams of a Hoosiers-style state basketball championship. The sport’s purists argue, to deaf ears, that a K-8 school could never have beaten the likes of Rainier Beach, anyway.


“You’re still left with two options — that’s to run a levy or to consolidate,” Molohon says. He adds, for the fourth time, that Bill Gates will not be flying in on a helicopter made of diamonds to throw gold bricks at their problems. Vaderites keep their eyes on the sky, just in case. In the meantime, Fred Chapman checks out the remaining school building, and finds it only slightly more inhabitable than the gym. He resignedly says he’ll have to close it down if a bond fails. 

January, 2007: The board talks bond options. Someone brings up a modular building, and an old man says Vader doesn’t need any more trailers. The modular home option is quickly tossed out the window.


March, 2007: School-saving levy and bond measures both get less than 50 percent of the vote. The Ryderwood retirement community is blamed. The Ryderwood retirement community, it should be pointed out, doesn’t really care anymore. Children start wondering how they’ll look in Winlock maroon and gold.


May, 2007: Vader kids attend school at the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s St. Mary’s Center. The kids like the food and the new digs. Tribal members like having the kids around and offer the school a gift to keep it going until another election. Board members wisely realize that a fourth election will likely have the same result, and decline the gift. Castle Rock agrees to absorb the entire district, on the condition that it gets to use the former school as a detention room. Teachers at The Rock start telling their students the old building is haunted; punctuality increases drastically.



June 15, 2007: The last day of classes ends with kids piling up their belongings and taking off. The bus driver puts Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” on repeat, shouting, “SCHOOOOOOL’S OUT! FOR! EVER!!!” at a load of frightened, and confused, children. 

August 31, 2007: Castle Rock officially absorbs Vader, two months too late to collect taxes in 2008. 

November, 2007: A collection of school and government officials realize the date error described above. “You just can’t die quietly, can you?” they ask the defunct district. 
 “Not on your life,” it replies.