Bob Jensen
July 19, 2004

Click on the 1960 GHS baseball photo for the entire picture, names, and other information.

I had the great fortune of spending my first 12 years of formal education in the Gilbert schools. I think that most of us that went through Gilbert felt that we were richly blessed with good teachers and a real feeling of family in our educational experience.

Gilbert long had a high school dating back to near the turn of the century. But the big change for Gilbert came in 1917 when most of the country schools in the current Gilbert district decided to consolidate and become part of the Gilbert Consolidated School District. Two brick buildings were erected to accommodate the larger numbers. Buses were pressed into service to haul the country kids into town to attend classes. In the early years these buses were pulled by horses and were frequently driven by responsible kids who were themselves students. As technology improved, motorized buses replaced the horse drawn vehicles and adults became the drivers. For many, many years the enrollment stayed relatively stable. Some years there would be graduating classes of as few as 10 students, but in that same year there might be 25 fresh faces showing up for first grade. (There was no kindergarten for many years.) Classes would grow and shrink as the years went by because in those days Gilbert was still almost exclusively a rural community and renting farmers came and went every year on the first of March.

Actually, Gilbert used to draw from a larger geographic area than they do now. The kids who lived north of 24th Street in Ames attended Gilbert for many years. Also the kids north of Ontario Street in West Ames went to Gilbert for many years. Two small country school districts decided to merge with Ames instead of Gilbert.

The Gilbert School is unusual in respect to the number of Superintendents which we have had in the last 60 plus years. We have only had two, V. L. Schwenk and Doug Williams. Both of these gentlemen were extremely talented in their assigned roles. V. L., as he was affectionately known, was right out of college when he came to Gilbert in 1938. He was not only a fine administrator but was also an excellent English teacher. Any of us who had him as a teacher will never forget his reading of "The Cremation of Sam McGee" or his use of the classic novel "A Tale of Two Cities."

Doug came to Gilbert in 1975 as the high school principal and in 1980 stepped in upon Mr. Schwenk's retirement and has done a wonderful job handling the responsibilities of the huge growth of the Gilbert district that now has a population of over 1,000 students. His steady hand on the tiller guiding Gilbert's many building projects and increased enrollment will be sorely missed.

In 1959-60, Gilbert built their first new building in 40+ years. Ours was the first class to graduate from what is now the junior high gym-auditorium. We had 19 in our class. The community voted 7 times before they could finally agree to fund the building of four new classrooms, new administrative offices, and a new state-of the-art gymnasium at a total cost of $250,000.What a change! Gilbert voters passed an $8,275,000 bond issue this spring for a new middle school and improvements at the high school. And this was on the first vote with 85 percent of the voters casting a "yes" ballot.

How has Gilbert changed? We graduated 19 — the class of 2004 graduated 81. The incoming 7th grade class for the fall of 2004 exceeds 100 students. The total population of the school is over 1,000 students. We had two sports ( baseball and basketball) now the number of extra-curricular activities available to our students are almost too numerous to count (which is good).

Academically Gilbert offers a huge choice of courses. In the old days, a course as essential as trigonometry was only offered if you had a minimum of four students signing up. Consequently many years it wasn’t offered. The increased number of residents in Gilbert and the surrounding subdivisions has caused the enrollment to grow consistently for the past 35 years or so. Now with the explosion of houses in the north part of Ames which lies in the Gilbert district, it appears that the continued growth of our school is assured.

Now I have the great honor of being a member of the faculty at good old Gilbert High! Years go by. Times change. People leave. People move in. But one thing remains the same — Gilbert High is still a family! We all try to keep it that way. May it ever be so!

Editor's notes: Bob Jensen was born at Mary Greeley Hospital. He grew up on a farm just west of the Oaks Golf Course. He graduated from Gilbert High School in 1960.  Early in his career, he taught at Gilbert then went into full-time farming, but with the slump in the farm economy in the 1980s, he got back into teaching. He continues to farm. He also continues to teach American and world history and sociology at Gilbert.

When we met Bob, he talked about Iowa legislation in about 1955 that forced country schools to go in with larger districts and how two country schools in the southern part of the Gilbert district chose to go with the Ames district. He also talked about being a kid and his dad telling him something to the effect, "Son, you will see the time when [Ames will expand to take in this area]." Bob didn’t believe his father at the time.

It is interesting that in the spring of 2004, the Gilbert school district arranged for an option on a piece of land within the Ames city limits, just northwest of the Hayden Park. The property is owned by the Jensen family. The superintendent at the time, Doug Williams, has said that if the school district enrollment continues to grow at its current pace, the district will build a second elementary school at the site in another ten years.