Teachers at the oldest school in southeast Idaho want your help documenting its history

POCATELLO – A teacher at the oldest high school in southeast Idaho is asking alumni to donate personal artifacts to help document its history.

Shawn Phelps, one of Pocatello High School’s art teachers who has also become its de facto historian, has been working to document the history of the over a century old school for 8 years. After the time he’s spent contacting people, scanning documents and collecting physical items, he’s putting out an open invitation for donations to The Poky History and Hall of Fame display.

“The Poky History and Hall of Fame display will be housed in a highly visible location within the school, allowing students to engage with their school’s history throughout the year,” a news release says about it.

For Phelps, this all started when Principal Lisa Delonas asked him to do some research for the school’s 125th anniversary. The goal was to put the information in that year’s yearbook.

“I started realizing there’s just so much that it just kept going,” Phelps says.

Time spent digitizing and collecting yearbooks, newspapers and original blueprints, as well as preserving school records, has been a big focus the last several years. Helping along the way are two dedicated alumni, Thomas Haskett and Teresa Vialpando.

As they learned more about the school’s history, Phelps started sharing his findings with other staff members and people in the community. That’s when something he didn’t expect began to happen.

“All of a sudden, people started telling me, ‘Well, this famous person went there, this famous person went there, and this alumni that went there helped design the rocket to get to the moon,” Phelps said.

Every time Phelps began researching a new alumni, it took him three to four months to complete. He’s learned that it’s much easier to do research when people with documents or items to share come to him — rather than him having to seek it out himself.

This prompted the idea to put out a call to alumni to see what new information they could find.

It’s not just random items they’re looking for. Phelps and his team are searching for artifacts that contribute to the history of Pocatello High School.

Yearbooks for most school years are readily available, but there are a couple of years in the 1900s they don’t have. Phelps is more interested in finding different kinds of school memorabilia — playbills from drama productions, school uniforms and photos that didn’t make it in the yearbook.

When someone makes a donation, there will be paperwork they can fill out to specify whether they want it to stay at the school permanently or temporarily.

Many of these items will find their way into custom-built display cases, which will be placed on the wall of the connecting catwalk of the school’s commons area. Phelps’ goal is to eventually fill up the entire wall.

If someone wants to make a donation before the school year is over, they have until May 29. Otherwise, they’ll have to wait until the start of the next school year.