After Sheridan School Closure, Decline Followed

After the closure of the Sheridan School in 1976, decline set in. Carla Martin, writing a Letter to the Editor to the Hopkins Journal on February 5th, 1981 advocating a 90 cent levy increase for the North Nodaway School, wrote, in part:

I look back at the time Sheridan High School closed. I was a student there. I had a choice – travel 60 miles to and from school a day, or give up all my school friends. I chose not to travel the 60 miles a day. There were no familiar faces. I was so glad Hopkins was a small, friendly school where you weren’t just a number. You had a name.

If you ever drive through Sheridan, look around at what used to be a busy town. There are not very many young people staying, because there is nothing there for them. The school had given so much business to the town.

The North Nodaway School was seeking to avoid the fate of Sheridan; their budget figures showed they were going to go broke in 1982 unless the levy passed. The levy passed easily with three quarters of the school district voting for the measure.