Rivals forced into co-op

DUNNING, Neb. —In this remote expanse of ranch country where cattle far outnumber people, folks keep a neighborly attitude toward everyone they meet — except when it comes to high school sports.

All over this region, kinship ends and rivalry begins on the football field, which makes what's happening at Sandhills High in Dunning and Thedford High, 27 miles to the west, so strange.

Declining and aging populations have forced the two schools to merge sports programs.

The Sandhills Panthers and Thedford Trojans have become the Sandhills-Thedford Knights.

"It was our biggest rivalry," said rancher Seth Ray, Thedford Class of 1998 and the school record-holder in the high jump. "We used to go to parties after games and have fights with all their guys. We didn't mix very well."

Football drove the decision to form the co-op, as it's called. As it is, the schools have only enough students to play eight-man football. Thedford has only 31 students in the entire high school.

Without the co-op, Thedford, immediately, and Sandhills, eventually, would have faced the prospect of dropping to unsanctioned six-man football.

More than 100 Nebraska schools have entered co-ops for individual sports, such as swimming and softball, but there are only six in which all sports are merged.

There will be more in Nebraska and other sparsely populated areas as budgets and enrollments continue to shrink, said Bob Colgate of the Indianapolis-based National Federation of State High School Associations.

"Sometimes it gets to be so political, and people say there is no way in you-know-what that we're ever going to combine and field athletic teams together because we've been rivals," Colgate said. "But it's a numbers game with the rural schools, and it's the new reality."

In Thedford's Thomas County, population dropped 20 percent (729 to 583) from April 2000 to July 2008. In Dunning's Blaine County, the population is down 27 percent (583 to 428) over the same period.

Sandhills' school district covers 904 square miles and Thedford's 700 — the combined size is larger than Rhode Island — and together they graduated just 22 seniors last spring.

Ranch life has become largely mechanized, and hired hands are few these days. When young people leave for college or to take jobs after high school, not many come back to start families.

The sign at the edge of Dunning says the population is 109, but no people are out and about during a recent sunsplashed afternoon. Except for the post office, the block-long business district is shuttered. Many of the houses are abandoned and falling down. A few dogs roam, and one sleeps in the middle of a gravel street. All that breaks the silence are the coal trains that rumble by, or the cattle trucks rolling past on state Highway 2.

"If this town would lose this school, as much of a ghost town as it is now, it would be really bad," said first-year Knights football coach Nick Mumm.

Thedford, by comparison, is vibrant. The town of 200 sits at the intersection of U.S. 83 and Nebraska 2 and draws traffic into its bank, motel, restaurant and two convenient stores.

All that stands between a town like Dunning's existence and extinction is school consolidation.

"By keeping your school, you're keeping your town," said 29th-year Thedford teacher and administrator Dave Young, who manages half the co-op as Thedford's athletic director.