Pictures and Brief History of Umonhon Nation School

The main building at Umonhon Nation was built in 1973. For many years prior to that time, there was no high school at Macy after the school burned in a fire. At the completion of 8th grade, students went to Walthill, Winnebago or a boarding school of their choice to finish their high school education.  Over the years, a series of portable classrooms, a five-classroom brick outbuilding and a metal classroom building were used for high school classes.

In 1999, the high school moved to the main building and minor renovations were made to the building originally designed as an elementary.

A major addition of 11 classroooms, a distance learning lab, the Cultural Language Center Huthuga (designed with elements of an earth lodge) and a commons area/cafeteria was completed in the Spring of 2003.  This addition has made it possible for grade levels to be separated.  After 30 years of being used in the morning and at noon as a cafeteria, the gym is now available throughout the day for physical education.

 







The 'Big Building', Macy Public School


A photograph, sent to me by Orville Aldrich. 

Mr. Aldrich wrote, You can see the school in the back ground, it was basically where the gymnasium now stands. I am going to do a painting of the building it seems there are not many who took a picture of it. You can imagine how Macy grew up around the school. Back when I was a kid near where the horse is standing there was a water spring that ran all the time. Someone built a water tank out of cement to water animals and also a spiget for people to get water. As most of us had no running water until the late 60‚s early seventy‚s a lot of people would fill up there water cans there. I know Dennis Hastings real well he has done some good work with writing down our history. The photo is only partial but you can see it was red brick building and remained the same until it was torn down in 1971 or 72. The first high school classes were in double wide trailers south of the tribal office. Well when I get the painting of the school done I will send you a copy.  I have lived in Arizona since 1973, left Macy when I was very young. I graduated from University of Arizona and got my Master degree at the University of Phoenix, had a 25 year teaching career with the BIA. I am now a counselor with the Tohono O‚odham Community College. My family still lives there or close by. Ima Jean Aldrich is my sister she was a teacher for many years around Macy and Winnebago.


Aerial Photography at TerraServerMicrosoft shows an aerial view of the town and school campus.
Use the navigator to the left to find your own town, or zoom in and out and pan using the buttons, or simply click the picture.  HIGHLY ADDICTIVE mapping tool!  This is an photograph of Macy, Nebraska.  The (old) school is to the right of main street which cuts the photo almost in half vertically. The new addition (not pictured) wraps around the existing west and north walls of the building.

Administrative History of Umonhon Nation Public School
Listings of the high school principals and superintendents who have served Umonhon Nation Public School.  Thank you to Jo Meyer and John Mangan for their research and submissions

How Public Education Started on the Omaha Reservation
The first (white man's) school on the Omaha Reservation was the Blackbird Presbyterian Mission which stood approximately 2 miles north of the current town of Macy on the bluff overlooking the Missouri River. The readers cannot see it from this small photograph, but in the print hanging in Omaha Way commons area of the new addition, close inspection will reveal tiny faces in the windows of the mission house.



One review of the boarding school movement, the philosophy and the results is available here.

An overview of the Omaha Tribe with a short segment on the Blackbird Mission School is found in here. This information was gathered and compiled with assistance from Dennis Hastings, Omaha Tribal historian

This Page was last update: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 11:21:22 AM
This page was originally posted: 3/29/05; 3:03:59 PM.
Copyright 2010 David Friedli

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