away for their children they requested permission to set up their own school district. With permission granted, the local Finns proceeded with zeal: August Matts gave an acre of land, logs were hauled to the scene, and everybody turned up to erect the building - a log structure with a big stove in the one big room with desks, a big blackboard, shelves for books and charts. The school was opened in the fall of 1902, with Joseph Sundin as the first teacher, followed by Charles Kangas the next year and by 0. Reardon the third. Some of the bigger pupils were already 18-year olds, and they were the ones who had the hardest time learning English.

The township became responsible for school costs in 1904, but this also made it part of the county school system: the school, which had only 5 grades, now had to expand to 8, and this in turn involved a larger building. The new school, built in 1913, had two classrooms - and two teachers. (Later, two more grades were added to the school program, and secondary school facilities were made available in Virginia.) The pupils took care of heating their school and keeping it clean. The teachers lived on nearby farms, until a 4-room house was built for them near the school. It was not until after World War I that the educational pattern in Pike began to assume more modern aspects and to meet new standards. In the early years children had walked to school, often many miles. Later, during rainy weather or in winter, horses were called on to haul the children to school. Finally, school buses have begun to call for the children at their very door and bring them back to the same spot.

A corollary to one's own school system was a local government: Pike Township was incorporated in 1904 and was to include a population of 340 in 1910 and 564 in 1920. When it came to naming the township, several Finnish names were proposed but rejected, and the place was named after the river which flows through it. The majority of the population was Finnish in those days, and although the Finnish percentage of the local population later began to decrease, up to the period of World War II the town meetings were even conducted in Finnish. Town officials, of course, were consistently Finns. In 1920, for example, Leander (Leo) Lundstrom was chairman of the selectmen, Jacob Anttila and John Bukkila were supervisors, Arvid Johnson was treasurer, and Gust Kivelä and W. Matts were selectmen. Lempi Lakari was the first woman elected and served as township secretary, while Alma Laulunen later was victorious over male candidates and was elected Justice of the Peace in 1949.

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