Dave & Barb Else are Iowa authors of For all the Small Schools: A Photographic Pursuit of Iowa’s Forgotten Schools. A love for Iowa's small rural schools set Barb and Dave Else on a journey to find the lost high school buildings that are no longer being used for education. In the latter part of the nineteenth century and into the early 1900s, the Iowa countryside was dotted with one-room K-8 grade rural schools. Due to declining enrollment and for purposes of efficiency, many of Iowa's high schools were closed or merged with other districts beginning as early as the 1940s. For All the Small Schools is a photographic pursuit designed to rekindle memories of Iowa's great rural schools and the students, parents, and communities they served.
This program is free to the public and open to all ages.