Restoring history -- Students learn about McCook by retouching old aerial photo

Representatives of McCook National Bank, McCook Junior High teacher Tom Lentz and social studies students stand in front of the aerial photograph of McCook that Lentz's students restored. The restoration project was financed in part with a $200 "America's Promise" grant administered by McCook National Bank, represented by (on the left, clockwise from the top) Craig Merrihew, Kim Baumbach, Sherri Stang and Kim Bauer. On the right are (clockwise from the top) teacher Tom Lentz and students Chris Conroy, Brandon Yost, Morgan Schaeffer and Amberette Burkey. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette)

By Connie Jo Discoe

McCook Daily Gazette

McCook seventh grader Amberette Burkey knows that McCook has a house designed by the world-famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

And she knows that Nebraska's senator, Ben Nelson, grew up in McCook and that Nelson's boyhood home sits between the Frank Lloyd Wright house and her own home on Norris Avenue.

But Amberette did not know about "that railroad thingamabobbie" ... "that round thing" ... "yeah, the roundhouse," and the influence of the railroad on McCook's development until she helped restore the badly-damaged, wall-sized aerial photograph of McCook that her social studies teacher Tom Lentz pulled out of storage.

Lentz said he discovered the large photograph, moun-ted on canvas on a wooden frame, in storage under Weiland Field's north bleachers shortly after he started teaching in McCook and keeping stats for the high school football team seven years ago. He said he told himself for several years, "There's got to be something we can do with it."

The photograph originally hung between the auditorium doors at the north end of the main hallway at McCook Senior High. MHS graduate and retired teacher Al Cuellar remembers that the aerial photograph, murals and photo collages in the north hall and at the southeast entrance were in the school when it was built in 1955.

Cuellar's was the first graduating class -- 1956 -- in the new building. He also remembers taking pictures of the aerial photograph before it was removed, probably in the early 1990s -- and tucked under the Weiland Field bleachers.

Last year, Lentz pulled the photograph out of storage -- just in time, too, he said, because not too much later water flooded the area under the bleachers.

Lentz and his sixth grade social studies students (his seventh graders now) applied for a $200 "America's Promise" grant through McCook National Bank and used the grant award to pay for supplies to restore the picture. The grant was supplemented with some funds from the school.

Amberette said they had to mix paints to match the tinting applied on the original black-and-white photograph.

High school artist Whitney Fagot, a junior last year, helped the students with the more difficult restoration areas -- where, over the years at the high school, students gouged and scratched their initials deep into the canvas.

That's why, Cuellar thinks, school officials removed the photo. "It was so beaten up," Cuellar remembers.

Lentz said he is guessing that the picture was taken in 1950 or 1951, as McCook historian John Hubert said he helped dig the foundation for the new east water tower -- clearly visible in the photograph -- in 1949.

Lentz said many of his students learned about the history of their community as they repaired the aerial photograph.

"It's been a good project for the kids," Lentz said, "because they can see what's here and that some things have changed."

Lentz said the map project generated discussions at home, as well as in the classroom. "They talked to Mom and Dad, and to Grandpa and Grandma. It connected them with the community," Lentz said.

The restored photograph hangs now on the wall at the doors to the gym in the junior high, inside an oak frame built by the MJHS "Exploring Technology" class, taught by Chad Lyons.

The photograph is protected by a sheet of clear acrylic -- to keep any more students from carving their names into a piece of McCook history.

Lentz invites anyone interested in looking at the map and examining the students' restoration project to stop by the junior high during school hours. Check in first at the office.

The mission of "America's Promise" is to assure that all young Americans have five essential elements:

* Caring adults in their lives;

* Safe places with structured activities in which to learn and grow;

* A healthy start and a healthy future;

* An effective education that equips them with marketable skills; and

* The opportunity to give back to their community through their own service.

"America's Promise" grants are available to McCook teachers through McCook National Bank.