Doing triple duty

For example, the superintendent’s $58,500 salary might seem high compared to the size of the district — $769 per pupil compared to $4.20 for the Tulsa superintendent. But in Fanshawe, the superintendent pulls double duty as a teacher, and then “triple duty” as a basketball coach.

“And that’s not all,” Horne says. “He’s the dean of curriculum. He’s the treasurer. He’s the chief of staff. He does it all. A district like Tulsa hires a whole staff to do what he does.”

Finally, as another argument for keeping small districts like Fanshawe, Superintendent Wes McGowen points to the intangible lessons that children learn from competitive sports — team work, confidence and a strong work ethic.

“At a larger district,” McGowen says, “some students aren’t going to make the cut or they’re going to sit on the bench. But here, everybody gets a jersey. Everybody plays. And that’s a huge benefit.”

Turning east off State Highway 82, drivers pass a sign that gives the distance to Wister, 20 miles, and to Poteau, 27 miles. Fanshawe is just 8 miles away, but the sign doesn’t mention it and drivers might blaze right through the town without even noticing.

The gas station closed years ago and the volunteer fire department sits inconspicuously off the main road. Even the school building — by far the town’s biggest structure, with just a handful of classrooms grouped around a wide central hallway that doubles as an auditorium, goes by so fast that some people will miss it.

“It’s hard to say where the town ends and the school begins,” says McGowen, who graduated from here in 1991 and whose father graduated from Fanshawe in 1955.

“The town and the school are pretty much the same thing. Without the school, there would be no Fanshawe.”