Future of O-M facility to be the topic of upcoming meeting series

Two series of upcoming meetings are intended to help Orient-Macksburg Community Schools leaders and the Orient community decide the future of their school facility once the district dissolves July 1, 2026.

These discussion sessions, facilitated by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, are being funded by the Orient Area Betterment and improvement Corporation and held in the city of Orient, with help from the $1.2 million gift given to Orient by Charlene (Speed) Lamberti and her husband, Donald, the founders of Casey’s General Stores. $200,000 of that gift was earmarked for school dissolution needs.

These community listening sessions will be conducted in May and will be open to all community members, including others from neighboring communities, who have an interest in the future of the area, a press release said. Prior to the community listening sessions, focus groups will be held this month with different community groups, designed to give shape to the rest of the talks.

Orient community leader Ryan Frederick said the goal is to collect a wide array of ideas and input that leads to effective long term planning for the facility.

“Without doing a full feasibility study, they’ll say that these are some things that might be in the cards, these are some things that aren’t, these are some things we found to be contentuous and these are things people more or less agreed upon,” Frederick said. “That will allow us to guide the discussion going forward.”

Because Orient is located midway between many area communities, organizers have intentions of reaching out to residents and leaders of those towns as well for input. Frederick said he also aims to reach out to Orient-Macksburg alumni — even those who don’t live in the area anymore — to see what ideas they have.

“We’re going to do some community visioning and go out and ask people what they think,” Frederick said.

Contents and memorabilia in the school will be separate issues decided through separate processes. These meetings are solely for the facility itself.

“We are very excited to be able to facilitate this discussion for the Orient community. This is hard work but extremely important for the growth and future of the community and we appreciate the opportunity to assist,” ISU Extension and Outreach’s Assistant Director of Community and Economic Development Himar Hernandez said.