If only the walls could talk.

Instead, the once hallowed halls of learning at Morland High School were deathly still. Yet they were unwilling to relinquish a connection to students, the lifeblood of virtually every northwest Kansas community.

Inside the gymnasium at Morland's high school, basketballs littered the varnished court, its Tiger mascot still beaming proudly even though a fine layer of dust coated everything.

Never mind the broom leaning against the bleachers, it likely hadn't seen use in so many days.

But neither had the caged volleyballs, deflated and hollowed by a lack of use and the passage of time.

Morland High School was not a happy place, despite the hallway murals, emitting brilliant colors even though the hallway lights were darkened.

Inside the last rooms along the hallway, the last vestiges of the school could be found, crammed inside the darkened spaces.

Desks -- once belonging to Austin and Isabella -- were pushed up against the wall. Darkroom equipment littered the floor and books were heaped on countertops, spilling onto the floor.

It is an oft-repeated scene at other communities that have lost their schools: Utica. Jennings. Herndon. Agra. Kensington. Bazine.

There are, to be sure, other communities struggling to keep their schools, working through agreements with other districts to stave off the specter of consolidation and perhaps the total loss of a school.

Some are recent victims of a declining population, brought on by smaller family sizes, larger farms and simply more opportunities in the city. For many, the bright lights of a big city beckon, and few born-and-raised northwest Kansas students are content to stay close to home.

It's difficult to say how much it hurts a community to lose its school, its students and the myriad of activities that surround school life, beckoning visitors from near and far to watch as their children play a sport or join in academic pursuits.

Townsfolk are loathe to talk about the effect a school's closing has had.

It is, after all, difficult to talk about the death of a community. Especially before the pronouncement has been made.

Grinnell

Grinnell is one community struggling to hold total consolidation at bay.

While it lost its high school to Wheatland just outside Grainfield, Grinnell was able to get a middle school and keep its grade school.

But no longer are the Warriors drawing people into the community for Friday night football.

"It's hurt the town," said Pat Ostmeyer, manager of Home Town Grocery. "Every business that goes out, it hurts."

Today, the store is community-owned, brought back from the dead. It followed the example of other communities, including that in the city of Gove -- where the Gove Community Improvement Association now owns both a restaurant and grocery store. Gove's grocery store provides wholesale grocery supplies to other area communities, some of whom are too small to attract larger suppliers.

Ostmeyer said the lumberyard has closed as well, "until they get someone to run it."

Because the grocery store is community owned, it relies on volunteers for such things as stocking the shelves on delivery day.

Too few makes for a busy day.

"We normally have more," she said. "Right now we have two volunteers."

Ostmeyer said she's confident the loss of Friday night football games, for example, have hurt.

She said it's likely that a parent planning to attend a football game would leave early, and do a bit of shopping before the game.

"They're going to buy groceries there," she said.

In Grinnell's case, parents also made the trip to Grinnell Locker and Beckman's Furniture.

* * *

Sen. Ralph Ostmeyer, R-Grinnell, knows that all too well.

Just recently, he talked with a Wallace County resident who told of making the trip to Grinnell, and stopping by Grinnell Locker to either buy meat or drop off an animal for processing.

After that, the furniture store was on the agenda, with any purchases to be delivered later -- well after the night's game.

Ostmeyer's 18-county Senate District seat -- covering everything north and west of Ness County, with Rooks County tossed into the mix -- has been all but ground-zero for most of the school closings and district consolidations.

Yet, he's sure there's more to come. And he knows each and every one will hurt.

In Grinnell's case, the school district there has an agreement with Wheatland -- something of an extension of the agreement hammered out when Ostmeyer was president of the Grinnell district, that of sharing teachers and joining forces to field a football team.

Ostmeyer isn't sure the savings have been enough, however. If he still was on the school board, he said, it's likely full-blown consolidation would be on the table, distasteful as it might be.

But he would want to save the grade school if at all possible, to ensure young children don't have a long ride and a long day simply to attend school.

"We need to consolidate and start shutting down buildings," Ostmeyer said, because the costs are simply too great. "We're not saving any money."

It all comes at a cost, he admits.

"It all depends on who you talk to," Ostmeyer said of the effect the high school closing had on Grinnell.

He has no doubt it hurt.

But change is inevitable, even though some people are unmoving in their alliance to a school's mascot.

"I don't think that's good," he said. "We need to make sure we're educating the children and getting them ready for the next level."

Ostmeyer is a 1961 graduate of Grinnell High School.

"I was a Warrior," he said. "I played six-man football. We had enough for 11-man, but no one went out."

In response, the district cut football for two years. When it came back, everyone was out for the team, either as a player or as a manager.

But he can remember problems in the schools long ago.

"I can remember sitting at the coffee table or kitchen table and the folks were talking about shutting down schools," he said.

There simply weren't enough students to keep the schools open.

Then the war came and went, and soldiers came home and had larger families, filling the schools once again.

Large families are a thing of the past now, however.

Morland

It's unlikely anyone would call them the best of friends, Faye Minium and Dave Goff, two of Morland's few remaining business owners.

Yet they are both surprisingly upbeat about Morland's future. Given their divergent nature, they are upbeat for different reasons.

Minium thinks the community remains relatively strong, despite its struggles with declining populations in the city and county, and she has been willing to show that confidence by reopening the town's only cafe. She's also willing to help the Morland Community Foundation push ahead with plans to reopen the town's only grocery store.

Goff, however, thinks the time is right for people to return to small towns, taking advantage of low housing costs, and the opportunity to tap into nearby communities -- such as Hays -- to provide the amenities they desire.

Morland was the focus of attention by national media in early 2001 when its school board decided to close the high school and contract with Hill City, 12 miles away. The grade school closed the next year.

When the high school closed, it had only four graduates -- the same number it had when the school graduated its first class in 1917.

Morland was among the first district to actually dissolve, being incorporated into Hill City. Assets owned by the districts were at the heart of a dispute by patrons of the district. Goff led the charge against the district's decision to donate Morland's assets, including the schools, to the foundation, whose president is Minium.

The schools eventually were sold to Florida developers who had hoped to develop a bison foundation, raising the animals, selling meat and hides from them and becoming an overall headquarters for the massive beasts.

Scattered remnants of the venture remain behind in Morland High School.

A box full of hot buffalo jerky sits on a counter near the kitchen, empty jewelry boxes litter the floor where the gift shop would have been located and an assortment of faded literature hangs on the hallway bulletin board where once student news would have been posted.

It's a venture that didn't go anywhere, and the buildings once again are up for sale -- at Florida prices Goff is quick to point out.

* * *

"I'd say it's stabilized," Margaret Leibold, a 1975 graduate of Morland High School, said of the community. "People are coming in from Colorado."

She and her son, Michael, were taking a brisk walk past the school where the only sign of activity was around back, in the HeatWerks shop where Goff spends his days. Goff is renting the building from the school owners but is unsure how long he can stay, complaining that prices simply are too high for Morland.

"In a small town, you have a few influential folks who feel like they are aware of what the town needs," he said.

He is critical of the decision to sell the school buildings for $125,000 to out-of-state residents who wanted to raise buffalo. That's not to say he disputes the notion that buffalo could make inroads into the beef market.

He just doesn't think the business plan was examined close enough. Now, the owners are hoping to sell the buildings -- at a profit.

"The Florida real estate goes by the square inch," Goff said. "Here, we have to give some places away."

That's not to say people can't sell their homes.

"Right now, if you've a house to sell, put it on the Internet," he said. "Because I think people are going to buy it."

Current economics, he said, make it feasible to live away from metropolitan areas.

"I think over the years, there's going to be an influx," Goff said of people moving to Morland and other small communities.

What's keeping them away so far, he said, is the specter of no employment.

Instead, he sees a movement -- in time -- of people willing to work or barter for their essentials, through gardening or trading labor for food.

While hope was pinned on the bison venture, the grocery store closed.

"That was kind of a beginning of a collapse," he said. "By the time the grocery store was closing, very, very few people were buying from it."

* * *

Minium, president of the Citizens State Bank in downtown Morland, hopes all that changes when the Morland foundation reopens the grocery store.

"We're working hard to get the grocery store back," she said.

Recently, the foundation received a $143,000 grant to make that possible. If all goes well, the hope is the grocery store will be back open for business April 1.

When the grocery store closed, Minium and her husband opened Prairie Junction Restaurant across the street from the bank to give people a place to eat in the community.

"We're working hard to try to maintain our community in spite of losing our school," Minium said. "The community went through traumatic experiences when the school closed. They're losing an important part of a community."

It's taken time, however.

"I think they've learned to accept it," Minium said of the community's response to the school closing, "And that's the way it is."

She likened it to the phases of grief -- denial, anger, depression and finally acceptance.

Helping to ease the blow, she hopes, is the fact the Morland foundation was able to obtain all of the school photographs and trophies, which now are housed at the foundation headquarters, the former school district office.

There, the stories of the schools are told, and its history lives on.

"We've saved everything we've managed to get," she said. "And most everything is exhibited. Hopefully, down the road, what we've done in here will be appreciated by the community."

What she would like to see is the sale and use of the school buildings, which are seeing little maintenance, becoming a troubling sight.

"It's no longer our pride and joy," she said.

Utica

After nearly 20 years as Utica's mayor, Doug Hagans finally stepped down. It was time for someone else to take over.

"I was tired of going to meetings," he said.

He hasn't slowed down much, however, still running Hagans Repair and the store next door. The store, however, has transformed from a full-service grocery to something more akin to a convenience store.

Utica is another in a long list of communities to lose a school, The NesTreLaGo district that covered the four corners of its namesake counties -- Ness, Trego, Lane and Gove counties -- dissolved in 2005, its property going to the school districts surrounding it.

Utica has struggled ever since.

"It sure didn't help us anyway," Hagans said of the effect of the closing on the community. "Just another nail in the coffin."

Hagans pulls no punches when he talks about the community, where it has been and where it will be.

But he certainly doesn't lay the community's trouble solely at the feet of the district's closing.

Utica's aging population -- "Everyone here is 60-plus," he said -- and the decision to rip up what had been the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad also are to blame.

While the railroad didn't have local jobs, he said, they did pay taxes to the city and county.

"I didn't think they'd ever take it away, but they did," he said, and at the time, they were running anywhere from 15 to 18 trains a day through the city.

In response to changes in the community, Hagans Market has scaled back.

"We've basically got a little convenience store now," he said.

Oil has been strong of late.

"About everybody in this town works in the oil field," he said.

Hagans isn't too bullish on Utica's future.

"This place will always be here," he said of the repair shop. "This and the elevator. There might not be much else."

Hagans has gone the way of the community, rising up to as many as eight employees at its peak.

"By the time we're done, we'll probably be back to two," he said. "Every time someone dies, there's one less customer. And no one to replace him."

No matter how blunt he is, Hagans isn't quite ready to give up.

"Don't write us off yet," he cautioned.

* * *

Utica's Community Cafe, housed in the former grade school, now owned by the city, also is benefiting the city and its residents.

"In this building here, they also have the city office," said Donald Howard, a lifetime resident of the area who moved in to the city when he turned over the farm to a step-son.

Like several others, Howard travels about town in his golf cart.

He is a regular at the cafe, taking most of his meals there. He's on his own for supper because the cafe closes at 2 p.m.

He's also among those frequenting another room in the former grade school in the afternoon.

"We gather down here for a BS session and coffee," he said. "Anywhere from two or three to a dozen or so men. A lot of farmers come in from the county."

The cafe almost is the heart of the community, serving senior citizens and regulars.

As many as 10 senior citizens stop by for lunch and then 15 to 20 regular customers stop in.

* * *

As Howard headed home from breakfast, Mark Davis -- Utica's all-around city superintendent -- was busy draining the pool.

"Makes for a good babysitter," he said. "For no more time than it's open, it's a lot of work."

But it's an amenity Utica hopes will keep children home, however few there might be these days.

"Actually, I think there's more kids living here than when the school closed down," he said.

Davis was a 1981 graduate of Utica High School, with eight in his class.

"All those old pictures," he said, "they're tucked away in a closet. They're not sure what they're going to do with them."

Generally, Davis said Utica now is down to less than 200 residents, but it's not just the size of the town that matters.

There's also the safety. It's a small community where people leave doors unlocked and windows open when the weather is nice.

Davis said he's got a sister-in-law who lives in Houston and constantly is aware of her safety.

"I told her the only time you lock your car is when zucchini is ripe," he said. "If you leave your car unlocked, when you come back, you'll have a sack of zucchini in it.

"You can't get away with anything in a small town. And you don't have to confess it because everyone finds out before you have a chance.

"Maybe that's what keeps us honest."

What's ahead

While it's likely consolidations will continue, and the hallowed halls of many other schools will be silenced, the laughing, talking children of the district sent elsewhere, Ostmeyer doubts it will be state mandated.

"Anything we do, we need to do it locally," he said. "That's why we have elected boards."

"I guarantee if the state did it, they'd screw it up as badly as they did in 1962."

That's when a state-mandated consolidation plan forced districts to join together, setting the system we have today.

But as the state's budget woes go, so goes the school budget woes.

And that likely means a cut. How severe will be the ultimate question.

Still, Ostmeyer said schools need to recognize that troubles abound, and they aren't excluded from that pain.

"We've got school districts giving raises and businesses closing down," he said of the current state of the economy.

He said he's also never seen a superintendent or principal willing to sacrifice some of their own salary in an effort to save a teacher.

"They say, 'You need to raise taxes,' " he said of the response he gets when districts talk about declining revenue.

Now is not the time to raise taxes, Ostmeyer said.

With state tax revenue declining, he's continued to "keep telling my superintendents to look for another cut."

November's revenue report, Ostmeyer said, will be interesting to watch because it should set the stage for what develops in January.

If the report is dismal, the outlook might be grim.

And with nowhere else left to cut, school districts might be on the chopping block.

Serving as a state senator used to be fun, he said, and remains an honor.

"It's been great," he said. "But the last three years, it's been more of a job. It's not supposed to be fun, but you can't relax. Something is always coming around the corner."