The Orient-Macksburg Community School District will officially dissolve on July 1, 2026, as approved by the voters in the district earlier in 2025. The final day of classes for O-M students was May 23. This fall, O-M students will go to Nodaway Valley Community School District, or open enroll in other nearby school districts. Photo by Isabella Luu, Iowa Public Radio
Sept/Oct 2025 (Volume 17, Issue 5)
By Clark BreDahl
Classes at Orient-Macksburg Community Schools dismissed for a final time May 23 and the district will officially dissolve next year—the most recent of more than 400 schools in rural Iowa to close since 1950, and the first since 2015. Whenever and wherever that happens, it’s a tough pill to swallow. Schools have traditionally been the glue that holds rural Iowa communities together and, sadly, when they disappear, people, businesses and institutions often follow.
It’s been especially hard for folks who’ve been a part of the community for years, or perhaps generations, and still call it home. That would include our family.
My father graduated from Orient High School. He met my mother when she came to town to teach second grade there. I graduated from the reorganized Orient-Macksburg district. Our daughters were O-M grads, and my wife taught there for 15 years. Many other locals could share similar generational connections.
The district came together in phases, with students from Richland Township, Zion and Spaulding combining with Orient in 1960. Macksburg joined the following year and Nevinville officially completed the system in 1966. At one time O-M was the longest school district in the state of Iowa extending nearly 25 miles east to west, including students from parts of Adair, Adams, Madison and Union counties.
Time has taken a toll on rural Iowa. When our family was young, there were 20 school-age children living in a two-mile radius around our farmstead. By stark contrast, a yellow school bus has not passed by our house now for more than 15 years!
In 1975, 475 K-12 students crowded into O-M classrooms. At the beginning of the 2024-25 school year attendance had dropped to 112. Much of the decline has been due to dramatic structural changes in Iowa agriculture over the last 50 years. But, governmental “one size fits all” rules, regulations and funding have also played a role.
I was a member of the Class of ’65 … kind of a scary thought considering this would be our 60-year anniversary. Like teenagers everywhere, we considered ourselves special. And, in some respects, I guess we were. We were the first O-M class to spend four years together in high school. And, construction of a new gymnasium/auditorium allowed us to rack up all kinds of notable milestones.
We played the first basketball game ever in the new gym. It was immediately following Christmas break in January, 1965. The janitor made last-minute adjustments to baskets at both ends of the floor moments before the game. O-M’s senior-dominated boys team won that night and never lost a game on that floor, finishing the season with five consecutive home victories in route to a stellar season.
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