Hutchins family emigrated to Nebraska in 1868 to file on land in Section four, Deer Creek Precinct.

Mr. Haight came in 1870, walking out from Wisner. He spent his first night in the area at the Hutchins home near the Yellow Banks and first became acquainted with Florence when she was eight years old. He took a homestead being the NW 1/4 of Section 8 in Highland Precinct which is now the Fred Barry home. Mr. and Mrs. Haight were married November 9, 1880.

Florence Lewis endured all the rigors of life as a child in a pioneer family on the prairies of Nebraska.

She attended the first school in what is now School District 10. The school was opened in 1871 but the legal boundaries and organization were not established until a later date.

The first school board consisted of George Rouse, Charles N. Hutchins and Nick Keller. They did not have a school building so it was decided to conduct classes in the hut of one of three bachelor settlers. The one belonging to Israel Hutchins was chosen. The site was near what later became the Charles Schroeder home.

George Gray was chosen as teacher. He and a brother had been lost for three days in a raging blizzard. His toes had been so badly frozen that he had both feet amputated at the instep and had to walk on his heels. This happened in 1868 in Iowa. The fact that he was crippled made him the most qualified in the eyes of the neighbors, so that he was induced to become the first teacher.

There were fourteen children in the school which included Florence Lewis Haight.

Mr. Gray had agreed to teach on the condition that he could bring his horses. The first day of school April 1, 1871, the children were waiting at the appointed place, waiting for the teacher. They all laughed when they saw him coming riding a horse and six more horses following. That was a regular occurrence throughout the term and Mrs. Haight wondered if the children or the horses learned the most.

She related that one day the children were frightened when six Indians came into the school room to stay about an hour. When the teacher finally convinced them that there was only enough food for the children, they went on to Mrs. Wendell's cabin to beg and receive food.

Incidently, Mrs. Haight stated that she walked two and one-half miles to school each way. Her foster parents were then living on the farm which is now the Lloyd Reeves family home.

By 1873, the country had become so thickly settled that the need of a school building was felt by all. Again the men got together, hauling logs from the Elkhorn River to build a somewhat larger log building on the corner of Henry Ward's place now owned by Mary Lucht, north of the Schroeder farm. It was completed in 1874. Still no desks, and benches were made from roughly sawed boards which were built along the wall with the stove in

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