Powell County High

Back in 1994 I was attending Central Washington University with my brother. We carpooled together from Yakima which was a 35 mile trip each way to the campus in Ellensburg. As hard as we would try to collaborate our schedules, we ultimately would end-up with one of us having to wait an exorbitant amount of time for the other to finish a class.

With my idle time I decided to start writing a story about life in a small town in Montana. Why Montana? My parents are both from the state. Why Montana? My grandparents are both from the state and I have millions of great childhood memories of visiting their farm out on Harpers Bridge Road near Missoula. Why Montana? Because my great-grandmother came out to the state from Missouri and they went back after the first winter (so I was told by my grandfather who was known to tell a tale or two) and missed Montana so much her family made a second trip. The second trip led to a permanent settlement in the Big Sky state.

I had about 20-25 pages written on lined notebook paper and as time went on I found myself working as a long-term sixth grade substitute teacher in Union Gap, Washington. After lunch it was a part of the daily routine to read to the class. Once I completed the book the "real" teacher gave me to read, I decided to tryout my little "Powell County High" unfinished piece of work on those twelve year old students.

I didn't want the students to have a biased opinion about my story so I informed them that I would read a chapter from this new book and they could decide whether or not we should continue the story. After chapter one was finished it was unbelievable to me to see all of the hands shoot up in the sky to signal that the story was indeed a success in their minds (at least chapter one was good).

The only problem for me was that with 20-25 pages written, I had a good start to a story, but not much else to go on. I began writing each night to stay ahead of the class so the story could continue to go on.

I wish I could say that five months later I was offered a contract on the book and the rest is history, but I continued to read that story and edit the content for the next eight to nine years. I would add funny parts and keep them if there was a laugh or delete sections that received blank stares from the students.

Thankfully, the story was published and now I would like for as many people as possible to enjoy a fun story to read about small-town life told through the eyes of a grandfather depicting the happening of some of the local high school students.

I hope you enjoy reading "Powell County High" as much as I enjoyed writing the story.