July 25, 2016
If Laura Ingalls had lived in Burr Oak, Iowa, 130 years after she did, she would have been a student at North Winneshiek Elementary School. Unless, that is, being three miles from the Minnesota border, she went to the Mabel-Canton school instead.
After North Winn ceased to have a high school, students were offered the option of going just across the border to the school in Minnesota. Now that North Winn has been absorbed into Decorah, the reorganized district has a five-year agreement that lets Iowa students continue to cross the border.
The cross-state connection is strong enough that in October, a North Winn graduate presented a piece of school memorabilia — a mascot sign from the building — to the Mabel-Canton board. The story is on the Bluff Country News website.