Photo by Jim Muchlinski The school exhibit at the Lincoln County Fair in Tyler features all four school districts in the county: Hendricks, Ivanhoe, Lake Benton and RTR. Pictured are Ramsey Carr, Ava Guida, Lucas Rybinski and Aiden Jerzak.

TYLER — Public K-12 education in Lincoln County underwent dramatic organizational change since the 1980s, but the annual Lincoln County Fair school exhibit building still brings all four of the county’s school districts together.

The building is sectioned off to include elementary school artwork created throughout the previous school year by students from the Ivanhoe, Hendricks, Lake Benton and RTR school districts. They all still operate grade schools after being four out of five K-12 Lincoln County school districts until 30 years ago.

The building also houses a museum-like school display. Some of the objects are from the Verdi School, which still stands in the unincorporated town of Verdi near Lake Benton alongside the former school quonset-style gym which is now used for machinery storage

Other items in the display were salvaged from the older portion of the Lake Benton school, which was taken down as part of the plan to convert from K-12 to a K-6 grade school.

Lake Benton now sends older students to Elkton S.D., while Ivanhoe sends grades 7-12 to Minneota. Hendricks has a K-12 school, but pairs with Estelline, S.D. for sports. The RTR district comprises Tyler along with the former school districts of Russell in Lyon County and Ruthton in Pipestone County.

“We’ve had this kind of school exhibit at the fair since at least the 1960s when I was in 4-H,” said Curt Madsen, a farmer in Hope Township near Tyler, an RTR school bus driver, and one of the Lincoln County Fair organizers. “It’s one of the traditions that’s carried over to new generations.”

Curt became part of the Hope Township 4-H Club as part of a Tyler area farm family. He said his dad (Harald Madsen) used to help load Lincoln County Fair exhibits onto train cars to ship them into St. Paul for the Minnesota State Fair.

His daughter, Amanda (Madsen) Drake serves as the school building exhibit coordinator. She’s also a former Hope Township 4-H Club member.

After graduating from RTR High School, she earned an early childhood and elementary education degree at South Dakota State University in Brookings, S.D. She teaches pre-school in the Lake Benton School District.

She said the school art exhibits come together throughout the school year based on how teachers in each school want to compile their entries.

“All of the schools have been supportive of it each year,” Drake said. “Teachers put in their own time in the summer to get the exhibits to the fair, but the fair board pays all of them a premium that they can use to buy art supplies.”

She said the school art displays are an annual attraction for several generations of family members, much like the Lincoln County Fair itself.

The year-by-year county fair history is commemorated with an exhibit, located across from the historic schoolroom exhibit area, which contains memorabilia from many past Lincoln County fairs. One of the items on display is a set of two 1944 fair tickets used by Harald and his future wife Margaret (Ostegaard) Madsen for their first date.

“The school display is a way to recognize both 4-H members and children who aren’t in 4-H,” Drake said. “It’s something they can all show to their parents and grandparents. They look forward to seeing art projects that were made during the school year when they come out to the fair.”