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FARMINGTON – The Franklin County Agricultural Society’s 170th Farmington Fair opened its gates this clouded morning on what promises to be a full week of non-stop shows, exhibits, food, races, demonstrations and entertainment.
As steer were led to the Worthley Arena for show, and the midway’s rides were switched on into colorful animation, the doors of the Little Red School House Museum swung open again to greet fairgoers today.
The difference this year will be the addition of 26 University of Maine at Farmington students who will be taking turns volunteering their time as part of UMF’s Month of Service program through Fair week to bring life inside the historic one-room school house alive.
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The volunteer program will send more than 200 people from the UMF campus out into the Farmington area to work alongside members of the community in service projects. UMF volunteers will be working at food pantries, churches, public service providers, nonprofit agencies and new this year, as tour guides at the Little Red School House Museum during fair week.
Built about 1852, the school house was where Farmington’s kindergarten through eighth-grade students received their education until it closed in 1957. The school house was moved from its former location in West Farmington, at the corner of Red Schoolhouse Road and Wilton Road, to the fairgrounds by the Franklin County Agricultural Society in 2006. It underwent restoration until it officially opened for the Farmington Fair in 2007.
The addition of the UMF students working at the schoolhouse is, in a sense, a return to the past.
For 10 years, between 1932 and 1942, the school house, provided valuable training for the budding teachers at UMF, formerly known as the Farmington Normal School.
On Saturday, UMF students attending an orientation session for tour guides sat in the little antique desks as Susan McCleery Small of South Portland and Jean Mitchell of Temple, gave them a history lesson about the school house.
McCleery Small, a retired teacher and member of UMF’s Class of 1966, knew a little something about the school house because she and generations of her family before her, attended school here.
Referring to the small chalkboards on each desk as “early laptops,” Small told UMF students about what it was like attending the one-room school house where there were an average of 20 students enrolled during her years there.
“We didn’t have behavioral problems probably because we all had one or two siblings in the same class who would say something to mum or dad and it would be handled at home,” she said.
Teachers of a one-room schoolhouse had to be very organized in order to keep all grade levels busy and interested throughout the day. Small said younger students would be familiar with lessons they would receiving when they got older and older students would help younger students with their lessons.
“We had a great time,” Small said of her years at the Red School House.
Victoria Coskery of Freeport, is in the third week of her first year at UMF. As a history major, being able to volunteer today at the museum is a dream come true.
“This is perfect,” Coskery said, “There’s so much history here.”
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