This is a page to share a memory of your time at Russell High School. If you have any stories you wish to contribute, please e-mail or send them to:

Nikki Slack
48617 320th Avenue
Russell, IA 50238

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By 1963, Russell was no longer serviced by our beloved central telephone operator on whom we'd relied to send out party line messages about emergencies, deaths, community events and yes, fires. On that very cold Saturday morning in January, those of us who lived in or close enough to town to hear the fire whistle didn't immediately know it was the school which was burning, that is, until neighbors began to call one another to share the news. Russell folk have always united during a crisis and the school fire was no exception. Students, towns people and nearby farm families quickly gathered on the west side of the school to watch in quiet shock as smoke billowed from the roof. I had just obtained my driver's license and remember begging my parents to let me drive into town and see for myself what was happening to my school. Being a junior at the time, I was selfishly concerned that the fire would deprive me of graduating from the only school I'd ever attended.

I recall several of my classmates were also there - a few in tears. Contrast those tears with what you might hear in today's news reports of crime, violence and destruction in our nation's schools. Such was not the case in Russell, Iowa.

At some point after the firemen had begun to contain the blaze, men from the community formed a "bucket brigade" down the west fire escape and typewriters from the bookkeeping room were handed from one set of caring hands to another. I vaguely recall helping in some way, perhaps, stacking the equipment safely away from the possibility of being trampled.

When classes resumed a week later, we found ourselves having to climb a ladder through the ceiling of the old gym to the four second story classrooms untouched by the fire. It probably wouldn't pass today's safety regulations, but no one complained back then. We were just grateful to still have our school and not be forced to go to Chariton.

Over 45 years later, I imagine that if you were to open one of those rebound library books that must still sit on the shelves, you could smell the essence of smoke from the fire that came so close to consuming the structure where our parents, aunts, uncles and in some instances, grandparents had obtained their education.