blackfoot-valley

shop. School classes continue in a smaller modern school building up the hill. Helmville Elementary teaches kindergarten through eighth grade, currently with three teachers and two teachers’ aides, in three classrooms with about forty students and fourteen preschoolers. Although the old school building has seen better days, it is still the most conspicuous building in town, with no clear function for the buildings’ present use. Large bells, especially old ones, are today uncommon and genuine historical relics, and it seems that this one could be put to better use. A worthy community project might be to acquire the bell (perhaps the county could be prevailed upon to donate it) and build a modestly elevated and secure platform at a suitable place in Helmville; a place where groups could gather for special community events and the bell rung ceremoniously on special occasions or designated days. It could once again become a useful asset of the community and a focal point of local pride. Helmville’s high school students have to go outside the valley. Tom Geary, after finishing at the old Helmville school, attended the nearest high school which was then at Deer Lodge, coming home for weekends by way of Avon, as did Sonny and others. Peaches Raymond, at 90 one of the most be- loved of Helmville’s old-timers, tells of her mother’s high school years at Hele- na, which in those times was two days travel from Helmville. Consequent- “Montana Schoolhouse, 1890” Wikimedia Commons 148