07/07/2026
Listen up folks and get ready for a ride! If this isn't Deja Vu, I don't know what is. You've heard the saying "History repeats itself," and following is a prime example. What were the good folks and greater community of Sharon Center doing 100 years ago this week? FUNDRAISING for major renovations and improvements to the old high school and community center. They were putting in a new basement and needed new windows and to build walls for new programming. Does this all sound familiar? Well, hold on to your seats! They were holding bake sales, picnics, dinners, concerts, theatrical performances, lyceums, sporting events and anything they could do to raise money for the major renovations. On Thursday evenings throughout the summer and fall, they held Haymakers Band concerts at Sharon Center and other communities. Some of you know that a couple of my historical heroes are George and Alice Ludwig. They worked tirelessly to no end in order to raise money to make improvements to the school building, and so did a lot of others, including Calvin Stutsman, Omar Yoder, the Grout's, Ressler's, Winborn's, Hershberger's, Hochstedler's, Rhodes, Miller's, Troyer's, Weeber's and many more. They held a fundraiser in June 1926 and according to the Iowa City Press-Citizen, "A neat sum was cleared which will be used for the benefit of the school." Between June and September 1926, 100 years ago, they raised the sufficient monies through community efforts and made improvements: a new basement, new windows, new classrooms in Manual Training (Industrial Arts), Domestic Science (Home Economics) and Basic Sciences, including Biology and Physics. They purchased the new chairs and tables that we still have in our prized stewardship today. They planned to add grades 11 & 12 and become a fully accredited high school. George Ludwig even noted that since the greater Sharon community uses the kitchen equipment for events as much as the Domestic Science classes, they would help with fundraisers to make it happen. Thankfully for us today, George Ludwig kept meticulous records and accounted for every penny. And we still have those records and images thanks to the several Ludwig grandchildren who have so graciously shared the original archives. Little by little the community, during 1926, achieved every planned improvement, and in September 1926 they opened the newly renovated schoolhouse. And what are we doing exactly 100 years later? Exactly the same thing: a community coming together to raise the funds to make the needed renovations for the old Sharon high school and community center. Dinners, picnics, live bands, rummage sales...you name it. As my own father used to say back in the 1950s, "Well, doesn't that just jar your old lady's preserves!" Now, what do you make of all this? Does history repeat itself? The Century Repeat? - Research and story by Dave Jackson and Collections Committee. Historic records from area newspaper records and the G.M. Ludwig Family Archives Collection.
