Five Mile group to debut book during Prairie Day

The Friends of the Five Mile School House has published a book about the history of Five Mile Prairie.

It will be available at Prairie Day on Saturday.

“We tried to recapture the history of the prairie through interviews with longtime prairie residents,” Marcella Bennett, interim president of Friends of the Five Mile School House, said. “We ended up with many more interviews than we could include in the book.”

Compiled by Jauna Cabbage, “Prairie Tales, Stories From the Life on Five Mile Prairie” begins by telling the stories of early settlers, including historic photos from the early 1900s, and ends with a photo from the Five Mile School reunion in 1992.

Cabbage, who moved to Five Mile from the Tri-Cities in March, said she took on the project to help Friends of the Five Mile School House, where her daughter goes to school.

“The Friends of the Five Mile School House had been working on this project for 10 years,” Cabbage said. “They just needed someone to take all the material they had and put it together in a book.” The book is published by the online service TheBookPatch.com and it is Cabbage’s first try at publishing.

“It was just so much fun. I personally interviewed about five longtime prairie residents,” Cabbage said. “The other interviews were done when the schoolhouse was rededicated in 2005.”

Cabbage said that the group, Friends of the Five Mile School House, is disbanding and proceeds from the book will go directly to the Five Mile School House.

“This was their last big project,” Cabbage said.

The Five Mile Prairie School is home to the Mead School District’s home schooling resource center and operates as an alternative school. Cabbage has just taken office as the president of the parent council there.

The release of the book is just a small part of what’s planned for Prairie Day on Saturday. Heidi Scott, who’s one of the organizers, said there will be an antique car show, a silent auction and lots of children’s activities at Prairie Day.

“This is the 15th year in a row that we are having a celebration at the Grange,” Scott said. The event is a fundraiser for the Grange.

This year’s theme is “Old-fashioned Fun” which will be reflected in the children’s activities.

“We will have gunnysack races and tug of war – games like that,” Scott said.