Among them were retired New River Elementary School teachers Carol Gerber and Heidi Sasse, who students knew better as Miss Armstrong and Miss Fetter, respectively. Both began their careers in the district at the 72‑year‑old campus immediately after graduating from Arizona State University in1973. They transferred to different DVUSD schools in 1982 and retired in 2003, yet their fondest memories reflected their time at New River.

“The children used to ride their horses on the last day of school and hitch their horses up for the day,” recalled Gerber, a former second grade teacher who now fills her schedule with traveling and gardening. For others, Sasse said, that was their regular transportation. Parents would drop off the students on horseback.

Of course, that could only happen when the campus was accessible. Sasse, a former first and third grade teacher and current tutor at the Sylvan Learning Center in Scottsdale, remembers students who couldn’t get to school whenever the nearby riverbed flooded. “Or they’d come to school wet up to their waist,” she said.

But some things never change. Kenna Hough, the district’s Parent/Community Involvement Coordinator and New River principal from 1997 to 2004, said despite advances in transportation, there are still kids who can’t get to school when it rains.

Those who did make it to campus during Sasse’s tenure, had a close‑up view of sometimes flowing New River. Her classroom trailer stood adjacent to a fence which, at one time, marked the only barrier between the classroom and the torrent. She remembers listening to tractors push gravel around the trailer for almost an entire school year to prevent it from being washed away during the rains.

Rain or shine, both educators agreed it wasn’t just the kids who had adventurous journeys to school. The teachers did, too. They talked about their car pool days when New River staff parked at Village Meadows Elementary School (19th Avenue and Union Hills Drive)  and piled in a car, van or even a kindergarten bus provided by the district. “You know that really killed my kidneys,” Sasse joked about countless bumpy rides on the bus.

She and Gerber, who became friends in college but hadn’t seen each other for a while before last week’s reunion, both leaned to the side at one point to demonstrate how they had to sit on the bus with its slanted windows and try to grade papers. “Oh God, what a country school I tell ya,” Sasse said, who remembers ringing the giant, gold hand bell at recess like in the pioneer days.

Former DVUSD bus driver Wanda Sartain also joined in on the conversation. Her route included New River until she retired in 1998. Sartain continues to transport students to educational field trip destinations such as the Grand Canyon or Sea World San Diego.

All of the women remember the wildlife that often visited the school because of its rural location. Hough, who left the school two years ago, remembers skunks who managed to spray the campus on occasion. The former teachers talked about snakes that often coiled outside their rooms, the families of quail, and the scorpions that appeared everywhere. “I found the biggest spider I had ever seen in my eight millimeter film projector,” Gerber said.

Before the ladies departed, Hough brought out pictures for further reminiscing and to illustrate how the campus has evolved. The elementary school has occupied its current site since 1962, but was extensively reconstructed for the 2003‑2004 school year providing new academic and administrative buildings along with a new playground.

Reach the reporter at ambria@thedesertadvocate.com.