History
of Academy Since 1922
 When
the Edmunds-Tucker Act was repealed in 1922, the Oneida
Stake Academy reverted to state ownership and became
Preston High School. As the school district's need to
grow advanced, additional buildings were constructed,
until Preston's present high school was built in the
40s. When the present high school was built, it was
located approximately 15 feet in front of the Oneida
Stake Academy's front door. It was so close, the academy's
staircase had to be remodeled. The academy became an
auxiliary building to the high school.
Classes were taught in the academy,
but the building began falling into disrepair in the
60s and 70s. In the 80s, under the direction and vision
of valley historian, Newell Hart, efforts to restore
the building succeeded in making it available not only
to the school, but the public as well. The arts had
a magnificent home in the Oneida Stake Academy. Concerts,
art shows, wedding receptions, etc., were held there.
Under the direction of Donna Shipley, a community art
club was formed that met there. Basement rooms of the
Oneida Stake Academy were used as a weight room for
the high school until the late 90s.
At that time, the academy was more
or less condemned and the school district began looking
at the space it occupied as prime real estate for a
desperately needed new cafeteria and library for the
high school. The school board finally put a deadline
of March 2003 on any efforts to save the academy from
the wrecking ball.
Joseph Linton, a local architect, had
rounded up enough grant monies to pay for a feasibility
study that confirmed the academy was structurally sound
enough to save, so a hunt began to find a mover not
only capable, but interested in taking on the project.
Dennis Lindsay, second generation owner of Lindsay Moving
& Rigging, Inc., in Washington, was one of the movers
that inspected the site and entered a bid for the job.
Then the fund-raising began.
A loosely knit group of Preston residents,
with the help of the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation
(whose president, Kim Wilson, attended classes in the
academy), began in the summer of 2002 to search for
over $1 million to cover the bids to move the building.
About $200,000 had been identified for the project,
but the March 2003 deadline came and went, and the group
had little more than the $200,000.
As the school district began making
plans to demolish the building, the trustees allowed
the group to continue to try to raise the money to move
the building. That's when the miracles began happening.
First, Larry Miller, of the Utah Jazz, pledged $250,000
to the project. That was followed by two $100,000 pledges,
another $250,000 pledge and $100,000 in individual pledges
from local people. Work on the actual move began in
August of 2003. The building was moved in December of
2003, and is now under restoration efforts.
To Mormon pioneers, education was a
priority. Many of the institutions they started continue
to educate students today. Some of the leaders the Oneida
Stake Academy produced were two presidents of the church:
Ezra Taft Benson and Harold B. Lee, a United States
Secretary of Agriculture: Ezra Taft Benson and a Hall
of Fame FBI agent: Samuel Cowley. Utah State University
president E. G. Petersen and former Ricks College (now
known as BYU-Idaho) president Joe H. Christensen gained
their educational background within the walls of the
Oneida Stake Academy as well.
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