Anselmo-Merna School

The Anselmo-Merna High School was organized in 1963 with the joining of the Anselmo and Merna High Schools. A new Anselmo-Merna High School was built in 1968.

The first school at Anselmo was started in 1887. A frame structure was built in the late 1880?s to house the first school. This building served as the school and church. In 1915 a new brick schoolhouse was built. By 1927 the school had grown to the point of needing a new high school. In January 1928, a new brick high school was opened. A gym was added to the school in the 1940?s. This served the community until the high school consolidated with Merna in 1963. The closing of the Anselmo School happened in December 1980. The students that attended that fall began attending school in Merna in January 1981.

The first schoolhouse in Merna was built in 1888. The school was rebuilt across from the Catholic Church in 1908. Part of the new school was finished in 1925. In 1930 a tornado came through and destroyed half of the building. The school was repaired and added onto that year and served as the K-12 Merna Public School until the late 1960?s when they consolidated with Anselmo. The building then became the Merna Elementary School until 1981, when the Anselmo Elementary School closed, and the elementary became the Anselmo-Merna Elementary School.

In 1990 a bond issue was passed to add on to the north end of the high school. This was to increase the availability of technology and allow more room for classes. This addition of new classrooms, art room, science classroom and lab, computer lab, industrial technology classroom, and lab, a commons area, music room, weight room, wrestling room, boys and girls locker rooms, distance learning classroom, and media center more than doubled the size of the Anselmo-Merna High School. In the fall of 1996, an activities building was built between the high school and elementary school.

A brand new elementary school opened in 2002 with 9 classrooms, a media center, a technology lab, and a music room. It joined the high school building with the activities building to form one large connected campus that has become one of the finest school districts in the state.

In the fall of 2006, the Anselmo-Merna Public Schools began their 1-to-1 Computer Initiative. At that time, teachers were issued a MacIntosh MacBook Laptop Computer for classroom instruction. Students in grades 9 and 12 were issued their own MacBook laptop computer in January of 2007. These computers were for their use for the remainder of the school year. In 2008, 7th and 8th-grade students were issued laptop computers for in-school use only. Anselmo-Merna Public Schools is only one of a select few school districts in the State of Nebraska to be involved in the 1-to-1 Computer Initiative.