I am breaking things up into five-year spans, which tells you how much information I’ve found, and how many schools were closing in the 1980s.
- Doon’s school closed in 1985 (Lyon County Reporter, 6/26/85)
- The closure was a two-year-long issue that included a threat by Doon residents to petition for dissolving the Central Lyon school district. It became THE factor in the school board election that September. A 67½-cent levy was collateral damage; it would’ve reached simple-but-not-supermajority status had Doon not voted 350-12 against (LCR, 9/11/85).
- Doon’s threat did not make it to a vote, which to my knowledge still makes Gladbrook the only town to go that far.
- St. Marys’ school closed in 1985 after an addition at Martensdale (Winterset Madisonian, 2/29/84)
- Ocheyedan’s high school was demolished in summer 1985 (Osceola County Gazette-Tribune, 5/23/85 and 8/29/85)
- Havelock-Plover shut down its high school in 1986 (Pocahontas Record Democrat, 12/11/85), three years before merging with Pocahontas. Its legacy is the black in Pocahontas Area’s school colors (PRD, 12/23/87). The Havelock school was closed upon reorganization and demolished before the 1989-90 school year began (PRD, 7/12/89).
- Newkirk’s school closed in 1986 (Sioux County Capital, 8/7/86)
- Nichols’ school escaped closure in 1986 (Cedar Rapids Gazette, 1/21/86) but got axed a year later (Columbus Gazette, 1/21/88).
- Sumner’s original school, a junior high at the end, closed in 1988 (Sumner Gazette, 9/1/88)
- Pulaski’s school closed in 1989 (Ottumwa Courier, 2/14/89)
- The Panora town square school building was torn down in spring 1989 (Guthrie Center Times, 4/12/89), but there’s more to the story:
- It was built in 1897 as a “county” high school, but that system ended in 1930.
- It replaced and was distinct from the older school in the town square, which was originally built as the Guthrie County Courthouse before Panora lost a fight with Guthrie Center. Iowa: A Guide to the Hawkeye State (1938, reprinted as The WPA Guide to 1930s Iowa, p.506) conflates the two, but this postcard featured on a school alumni page shows both.
- It remained Panora’s high school until a new one was built in 1974 (Guthrie Center Times, 4/6/88).
- The school year it was torn down was the first for the Panorama district, a combination of Panora-Linden and Yale-Jamaica-Bagley, each of which had formed in the early 1960s (Guthrian, 2/21/61 and 10/1/61).
- I could not find a year for Bradgate, only that it was still operating in 1973-74 (Pocahontas Record-Democrat, 1/3/74), but that led to other discoveries:
- Talks between Gilmore City-Bradgate and Rolfe over sharing fell apart when GCB didn’t want to lose the high school (PRD, 12/21/88, 2/15/89). They shared athletics for one year but then Rolfe went with Pocahontas.
- Newell-Providence and Fonda began sharing in 1989 (PRD, 1/18/89)
- Rockwell City and Lytton began sharing in 1989 (PRD, 12/28/88)
- Manson and Northwest Webster began sharing in 1990 (PRD, 3/28/90)
- Olds’ school closed over Christmas break in 1989 (Mt. Pleasant News, 12/13/89)