June 4, 2014: Prairie Valley Elementary School (K-4) is not in Farnhamville itself, but rather at the intersection of P41 and D26, a couple miles southeast of Somers. It is one of only two schools in Iowa I am aware of with its own sewage lagoon; the other is West Lyon, halfway between Inwood and Larchwood on IA 182.
When Prairie Valley and Southeast Webster-Grand announced plans for whole-grade sharing, I wondered how geography would be handled, if at all, in the new name. There’s now an answer: vaguely. The schools picked a fragment of each existing name to create “Southeast Valley”, much like “Central Springs” took from North Central of Manly and Nora Springs-Rock Falls. Both are spiritual kin with “West Fork”, SCMT plus Rockwell-Swaledale, and “Easton Valley”, a true portmanteau of East Central and Preston. The sheer size and spread of each district, and the multiple towns involved, make the sense of place looser out of necessity.
The Southeast Valley name is not to be confused with the recent Corning-Villisca merger, which is going by Southwest Valley, referring to its location in the state. “South Webster” could have been problematic for a name because a good chunk of Prairie Valley (including the site photographed at top) is in Calhoun County and the “-Grand” was for the Boxholm-Pilot Mound area in Boone County.
The combined teams will be known as the Jaguars, the second new school in Iowa to take that nickname after Ankeny Centennial. It wouldn’t be the first time for such a coincidence. At the beginning of the decade, we got two separate programs in western Iowa with a purple-black-silver color scheme known as the Titans: South Central Calhoun (2010) and Graettinger-Terril/Ruthven-Ayrshire (2012). I mean, seriously, that’s weird.
The Southeast Valley name got a head start this summer. The Jaguars are playing tonight against Maple Valley-Anthon-Oto for a spot in the state baseball tournament, something that can go a long way for community cohesiveness.