Line engraving of a swim lesson in the big pool
Lessons in the big pool, two a day for five days

How the Lessons Started

From time to time when I was a boy, the local Red Cross organized a swimming lesson program and brought kids out in a school bus for their lessons. They brought their own instructors and we just provided the water. But by 1964, quite a few years had gone by with no swimming lessons and many people inquired of my parents if they would do a program. My Dad and two older sisters, Bernice and Bert enrolled in a night class at Ricks College and certified as Red Cross water safety instructors. The following summer they started to teach.

The first year, we had a car pool of kids from Teton, Idaho as our only students. The next year Tetonia signed up, the next year another community, and so on. Before long all the little communities from Sugar City to Victor had their car pool group and came for their lessons.

At first we just let each group pick 10 lesson days and mark them on a calendar. As you can guess, before long we saw the need to organize. So we organized them as either M-W-F classes or T-Th-S classes. We would teach an 8, 9, and 10 o’clock group each day. In the fall of +- 1982 we had a group of parents from the West Jefferson County area request us to do a late summer group just for them. Due to the distance of travel, they asked if they could camp here and do two lessons each day and be done in five days.

So we put it together and it turned out to be a lot of fun. The kids did well with their lessons and the camping/swimming experience seemed to be a big hit.

From Phil Neibaur’s centennial history, 2003. Read the rest.