Hebeler Elementary School alumni reunite and reminisce at CWU

Long before it was known as Hebeler Hall, the building that currently houses continuing education, dual enrollment, and international programs at Central Washington University was known as the College Elementary School.

Renamed in honor of CWU Professor Amanda Hebeler in 1963, the Hebeler Elementary School (HES) — which opened in 1939 — served the children of CWU faculty and staff, giving them a convenient place to get an education while providing the students of what was then known as the Central Washington College of Education the opportunity to ply their trade right on campus.

This summer, a group of HES alumnae gathered in Ellensburg to tour the facility and exchange memories of what ended up being a very formative time in each of their lives.

Among the visitors on July 16 was Ronda Brooks Patrick, the daughter of former CWU President James Brooks, whose experience at HES has come to define what she sees as a generational shift in how we live our lives.

“Coming back into this building is so special,” she said. “Our experience here was unlike any other and might never be repeated that way again. The change we’ve experienced in our lives, from pre-internet to AI, feels like it could have spanned centuries.”

HES was used as a “laboratory classroom,” a space for teachers to experiment with new and innovative approaches to education, to the benefit of both the elementary school students and the future teachers earning their college degrees.

According to Maureen Rust, HES alumna and former CWU student outreach and engagement librarian, this approach led to extraordinary classroom experiences.

“What stood out to me, from my brief time there and from listening to the stories of those who attended more years than I, was how progressive the curriculum was,” she said. “I’m so glad to have experienced a slice of it.”

That innovative approach extended beyond the curriculum and into the very structure of the classroom, HES alumna Wendy London explained.

“In fourth grade, in Mr. Gray’s class, he put on the wall that freedom and responsibility go hand in hand,” she said. “We wrote our own learning goals and had a sign-in board where students could come and go from the classroom. We learned a lot about personal freedom that year.”

All of this experimentation was documented by the attending CWU students, in a process echoing the laboratory-like setting.

“We had a one-way window in kindergarten, where Central students would observe the class and take notes,” said Patrick, who organized the reunion. “A couple of those people on the other side of the glass were my older cousins, and I thought that was horrifying, because what if they told my parents how I was acting at school?”

The reunion was met with enthusiasm by the whole group, which attended HES between 1964 and 1969.

“We knew we wanted to get together and do a little Hebeler reunion, and it just blossomed,” said HES alumna Lori Ayers. “Walking down these hallways, I keep finding more and more old friends and memories.”

In 1982, the state decided to close this kind of instructional facility for financial reasons, leading to the end of an era and the modern incarnation of the building as a hub for a broad variety of programs designed to provide educational opportunities to those who might otherwise have trouble finding them.

The memories of their time on campus remain, however, as alumna Alicia Fuller McRae notes.

“We were really fortunate to go to school here,” she said. “My dad’s office was just over in Hertz Hall, which used to be right next to Hebeler. I would just go to his office and see him, and he had a short walk over here whenever I was sent to the principal’s office.”