Greenleaf, Idaho, Friends Academy celebrates 100 years

Greenleaf Friends Academy opened in November 1908 with 16 students in Greenleaf, a small Quaker (Friends) community in southwest Idaho. The school is marking its centennial with a three-day observance that coincides with the town’s annual Fourth of July festivities. The celebration is themed “A Heritage to Honor, a Future to Fulfill.”

The Academy sits in the Boise Valley, six miles west of Caldwell. It has grown from a one-room school into a campus with modern classrooms, a gymnasium, elementary, kindergarten and preschool buildings, a cafeteria, playgrounds and athletic fields. The centennial events follow that development and include a buckaroo breakfast, school tours, class reunions, musical performances and a Sunday outdoor worship service. A memorabilia display and a “Centennial Store” selling items that honor the school’s history are also planned.

Saturday’s program opens with “Down Memory Lane,” a musical program of songs from past and present performed by alumni and current students. School tours and reunions follow lunch, with both block reunions by decade and individual class gatherings planned. On Sunday, the community is invited to an outdoor worship service at Greenleaf Friends Church to give thanks for what the school has been given since 1908 and to ask for a blessing on its next century. The Academy’s history is a lesson in remembering the past and passing faith to the next generation (Deuteronomy 32:7).

Greenleaf Mayor Brad Holton said the centennial is worth highlighting “because the history of the Greenleaf community is largely the history of Greenleaf Friends Academy, and because Academy graduates have had worldwide impact.” He described the school as “the center of identity for the city, and by far the largest employer within the city limits.”

Among the notable alumni, the source lists Prescott Beals, Class of 1912, who became a prominent leader in the Nazarene Church; Joe Albertson, who attended with his brothers Fred, Phillip and Maurice and went on to found Albertson’s Markets; and Ezra and Corwin Hinshaw, Classes of 1917 and 1919. Ezra served for 20 years as president of the old C.C. Andersons, later named Bon Marche and currently Macy’s, and later founded Hinshaws department stores in southern California. Corwin became a specialist in lung conditions. The source says the school’s student body now comes from more than 50 churches across the Boise Valley and as far away as southeastern Oregon.

The school is described as the oldest Quaker school west of the Mississippi. Settlers began arriving in Greenleaf around 1903, the Quakers followed a year later, and Greenleaf Friends Church was established in 1906. Families who had recently moved to the area began discussing a Christian school for their children as early as 1905. The first day of school was held on November 10, 1908, in the home of Cora Beals, the first high school teacher. Classes later moved to the church until a school building was ready. Construction on a new building began by 1909, its first section was completed on April 11, 1910, and a second section followed in 1917. The school held its first graduation in 1911.

The Board of Trustees established the Centennial Campaign to provide a financial base as the Academy enters its second century. The endowment effort, “Preserve the Past and Promote the Future,” offers several giving options. According to GFA director of alumni relations and development Judi Magee, the endowment fund is nearly halfway to its $1 million goal, and more than $800,000 has been raised overall. Information is available at www.greenleafacademy.org.

Source: Read the original report