ABSTRACT
A tragedy probably shared in the collective experience of many American rural communities. The tragedy is that although there are typically over 400 graduates of Little Kanawha who still come yearly to visit and proclaim their old school, there are very few in the immediate area that could defend the school from consolidation, either in the 1960s or in the 1990s. The chapter discusses R. E.'s claims about the strength of Little Kanawha's contemporary school-community liaisons which he used to oppose consolidating the middle school. It provides a framework which deals more ethnographically with cultural scenes within the school in 1991 involving student-teacher and student-staff interactions. Residential and consumer patterns of Little Kanawha's teachers, students, and staff are other good illustrations of the impact of the automobile upon the lives of the local population. Little Kanawha is actually comprised of two separate buildings, together with its open fields, large playgrounds, and close-lying tennis and basketball courts.
