Why does the sign read: Bluffton Richland High School above the school building as it faces Main Street?

Isn’t it just “Bluffton High School?”

Here’s the background: From 1921 to 1929 Bluffton High School was maintained as a joint high school of the Village of Bluffton and Richland Township, under the charter name of the Bluffton-Richland High School.

Now it gets rather complicated, and this is the short version:

In 1943, the Ohio legislature passed legislation “providing for recodification and revision of the laws of Ohio pertaining to public schools.”

In that action, school districts in Ohio became known as local school districts – with the exception of exempted village school districts, county school districts, joint high school districts and city school districts.

To become an exempted village school district, the law stated that the village must contain 3,000 or more people or 2,000 or more, in the most recent census, and a sufficient population outside the village to make the total population 3,000 or more.

Bluffton village, with Richland Township’s population, was above 3,000 in 1943, and thus become an “exempted” school district. Apparently Ohio has 47 exempted village school districts.

So, there is no such thing as “Bluffton Richland High School” today. It’s simply in our historical memory – or in this case, not even in our memory. And, now Bluffton Richland High School is part of forgotten Bluffton.

Post script:
Our school is technically Bluffton Exempted Village School. And, we’re sort of glad that long title isn’t on the building.

Exempted from what? We will get into that in a later column.