Camano City schoolhouse rings true

Camano City Schoolhouse was once the center of families’ lives during the first half of the last century. Now the schoolhouse foundation hopes to preserve its history. PHOTO BY JEREMIAH O’HAGAN | STANWOOD/CAMANO NEWS Take a step back in time on April 23, over the threshold of the 1905 Historic Camano City Schoolhouse.

Inside, you won’t find a single computer or even a white board; instead, “blackboards, slates and workbooks … original wooden desks for teachers and students, a big brass bell to ring in the end of recess, and antique tin lunch pails,” said Jim Turk, with the Camano Schoolhouse Foundation (CSF).

You’ll also discover a chance to help preserve the building, which “is possibly the only remaining, nearly original one-room schoolhouse in Island County,” Turk said.

The schoolhouse is owned by Camano Island Fire and Rescue (CIFR), which has agreed to sell the property to the schoolhouse foundation for $100,000 — “with $20,000 down payment and a generous 10-year payment period for the balance,” Turk said. “The fire department has shown several years of support as they worked with us to make this happen.”

The school’s classroom has remained mostly unchanged with its blackboards bordered by the alphabet. Saturday is the kickoff to CSF’s Six Days of Spring Donation Drive to collect the down payment.

Food and drink will be for sale, and CIFR firefighters will be there to offer tours of the fire station next door, pose for photos and display their gear, both new and antique.

Camano Island Coffee Roasters has roasted a special blend of “Schoolhouse Selection” beans for coffee lovers, or those looking for gift ideas.

“We know $20,000 is an ambitious amount,” Turk said, “but we hope people get involved.”

Artist Candi Martin Baker recreated Camano City Schoolhouse in its heyday. The painting is depicted on the brochure for the Camano Island Studio tour. Candi Martin Baker, a local artist, chose to get involved in her own way.

Baker said she was driving around Camano with her son when he pointed out the schoolhouse.

“Look at that old building,” he said.

Baker looked, and saw potential.

“At the time,” she recalled, “I saw an opportunity to use it as a part-time studio.”

She called Chief Mike Ganz, of CIFR to inquire. About that same time, she also read an article about Turk’s group’s desire to save the schoolhouse.

She called him.

“Baker has been extremely generous,” Turk said. “It was her idea to apply to the art folks and see if the schoolhouse could be a venue for the art tour.”

Baker said it took a little schmoozing and a lot of cleaning, but she got the site approved as part of the 13th annual Camano Island Studio Tour, May 6-8 and 14-15.

She also agreed to paint an original acrylic of the schoolhouse for the studio tour brochure.

Baker’s painting, “Historic Camano City Schoolhouse,” will be raffled off over the three weekends, with the winner announced in June.

Baker’s painting shows a “sun-splashed schoolhouse during its heyday in the early 1900s,” Turk described.

Baker said she worked from photos, but took a little “artistic license.”

“I wanted the water in there,” she said, “so I cut down some trees, mentally.”

Baker is donating all proceeds from the raffle to the schoolhouse foundation.

She’s also donated the rights to use the image in promotions, as well as the proceeds from note cards and prints made from the original. Her painting also made its way onto the label for Camano Island Coffee Roasters’ special blend.

“I’m surprised how many people don’t even know about the schoolhouse,” Baker said.

She hopes her contribution will change that.

Turk thinks it will, especially since Baker got the schoolhouse included as a venue for the studio tour.

This weekend’s event is firmly focused on fundraising, he said. After that, that focus and attention shifts to the studio tour, but CSF believes they’ll benefit vicariously because of the crowds the tour draws.

“I think we’ll reach a lot of people,” Turk said. “Few know that in the early 1900s Camano City was a thriving island community with a general store, post office, shingle mill, dock, scheduled ferry service and this bustling schoolhouse.”

He hopes the three weekends will build awareness of the foundation’s longterm mission of purchasing the schoolhouse, preserving it and restoring it to a functioning community center.

“We envision a smallscale version of the Floyd Norgaard Center in Stanwood,” Turk explained. “The schoolhouse, thereby, rather than a lonely, bedraggled building, will be a place that’s alive again, and part of the community.”

Turk looks forward to days when the building hosts intimate musical events and art shows on a regular basis. The daylight basement space could be rented out, perhaps, or turned into a cooperative art studio, much like Baker originally imagined.

The basement, she explained, is divided into two spaces — one is essentially an open, well-lit room, and the other contains a sink. It needs work, she added, but light and a sink are good things to have.

Turk is looking for people who have photos or memories of relatives who actually attended school at the Camano City Schoolhouse.

A number of people have come forward with such photos and memorabilia, he said, and “we’d love to make copies for use in displays of yesteryear.”

Schools are a place of vitality, and Turk hopes to celebrate that history while looking into the future, when the historic schoolhouse stands once more as a humble centerpiece of the community.

Staff Reporter Jeremiah O’Hagan: 629-8066 ext. 125 or ohagan@scnews.com.