As Rock Creek grows more and more students and faculty who are new to the Rock Creek School District, may not be aware of the history our current building holds and how it was planned and created by the surrounding communities around Flush.
Rock Creek High School is unique in many ways but one element, the wooden arched doors stands out, those doors were opened in 1991. The building located on Flush road came out of the necessity of combining other surrounding area high schools.
Looking back at the history of the surrounding communities of St. George, Westmoreland, Blaine and Flush High Schools that came together to create what people now know of today as Rock Creek High School.
The first school in St. George, Kansas, was organized in 1859 in a small Cottonwood Building. A brick schoolhouse replaced it in 1908. The school then evolved into a four-year high school by 1919 sporting the Trojans as a mascot for many years before closing in 1991 when the school consolidated into Rock Creek High School. Today, students in the St. George community attend St. George Elementary and then Rock Creek Middle School followed by Rock Creek High School.
The original Westmoreland school was established in the winter of 1862, based on information from the City of Westmoreland Kansas website. The original structure site for the first Westmoreland school was a log cabin which stood near the corner of the current day State Street and Hwy 99. This school served several townships as there were no clear boundaries for the school district at that time. Blaine was the next town that is also a part of the creation of Rock Creek High School.
The city of Blaine has gone by several other names. The community at one time named Butler after the Irish priest Thomas Ambrose Butler. Then in 1873, 60 Irish Catholic families settled at the then called Bluff Creek, which ultimately became Blaine on October 14, 1879 when the town was actually platted and renamed to Blaine. A Catholic school first opened up at 1311 Hwy 16 in 1919 and closed in 1966. Before the formal Catholic school opened in Blaine, Kansas, in 1919. In 2010 a storm damaged the church and school and the church was repaired but the school was not.
Flush High School was a Catholic parochial school located in the small Pottawatomie County community of Flush, Kansas. The school, known for its basketball team, the Flush Rockets, served the local St. Joseph’s Church community until it closed in 1976. Today, the area is served by Rock Creek USD 323, with the high school built in 1991.
Two veteran teachers that work at Rock Creek, Sara Miller, who has been teaching in the school district since 1998 and Chris Schmitz 1994. They have both personally experienced several changes, since the consolidation of the surrounding schools and the lore that surrounds the mergeer of the communities.
“So the Floersch family owned this land, and there was a priest at the church…named Father Beeler and he negotiated with the Floersch family to have this land acquired. He was a priest for 60 years, and he mapped the watershed of Rock Creek,“ Miller said.
Miller points to the way in which the school honors the Floersch family in the building even today.
“[In] the media center [library], is named after the Floersch family. If you look on the wall, there’s a picture of an old black and white photo, and it says something about Flush. It’s the Flush Media Center, and it’s because of the people that founded Flush. The school has a more interesting story than the students actually realize. So sometimes we think we’re just out in the middle of nowhere, just in the middle of a bean field, but we actually are very much tied to and connected to the community of Flush,” Miller said.
In a school board meeting dated May 1, 1989 reflect the concerns that people had Transportation was a problem for some students at first. The additions onto the building were another problem. People from Westmorland had asked if there was enough space for maintenance supplies, a bigger shop area for industrial arts. Some other concerns were does the school really need a commons as big as a gym. Water availability was also a concern for parents. Old documents stated that are dated in May 1, 1989
“It was a public school with a much smaller clientele. The first few years was interesting, trying to get the St George kids and the Westy kids to, you know, come together and not see each other as different,” Christopher Schmitz said.
Rock Creek is growing at an astounding rate. Since the new middle school was built in 2020
“We added on to the east side and added on a long hallway. We also only had one gym, and then we added on what we now call the auxiliary gym. So we used to just have one gym, and then we went to two gyms. So I’d say in terms of physically, we’ve had to add on different wings. The cafeteria was added on. We used to eat in the commons. Every day. They’d set up tables and take them down because there was no cafeteria. So like, lots of additions to the school,” Miller said.
The school has increased in size since it was first built in 1991. Rock Creek now has the Middle School and High School combined along with the USD 323 district office all onto one campus of 200 people. The district was originally in a one-room red brick house until 1966 when they moved on campus.
“…It’s increased by a magnitude of students and teachers three or four times bigger than when I first started teaching here.” Schmitz said.
The student population has also increased since the school was first built in 1991. The Westy kids and the St.George kids were seeing each other as enemies and didn’t want to be near each other. There was 32 seniors at Rock Creek in 1992 now there are 103 seniors at Rock Creek.
“It was a public school with a much smaller clientele. The first few years were interesting, trying to get the St George kids and the Westy kids to, you know, come together and not see each other as different,” Schmitz said.
In school board meeting mintues dated May 23, 1989, McCownGordon Construction was listed as who built Rock Creek High School. At the time it cost $4 million to build the school with an additional $2 million for all the add ons and small upgrades to the school.
To learn more about any of the information about the surrounding communities and high schools you can find information a the St. George Historical Society, Westymoreland Histroical Society, and at the following websites.
https://legendsofkansas.com/blaine-kansas/
http://www.cityofwestmorelandks.org/area-history.html
