This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and is republished here by permission.

There are nearly 400 school districts scattered across Montana, a state with just over a million people. Roughly 176,000 of those residents are school-aged children. Outside of major cities like Billings or Bozeman, school districts exist to serve some of the state’s smallest, most remote communities, from Lima to Westby. Across Montana, a number of forces are contributing to declining enrollment in public schools, forcing some to close. For particularly rural areas, a school closure has a domino effect — on students, families and the future of a town or county. 

I grew up in a more urban area, graduating with a class of 500 other students. In this project, I wanted to celebrate some of Montana’s smallest graduating classes. Over 5 months and many miles in the car, I worked to understand what it means to be one person in a class of one, two or three. Stories about rural American communities in the media often portray tropes of a hard life that is disappearing. They are written off as monoliths. In the face of this, I wanted to encapsulate the vibrancy of community, connection and day-to-day life in three small graduating classes. The students I met are also grappling with what it means to leave the places that are, for many of them, the only school building and home they’ve ever known. In this project, they’re on the verge of entering the future and deciding who they want to become — whether that be 40 minutes or four hours away. 

Lima, class of three

Town population: 221 • High school population: 13

The Lima Mountains are seen from Dell, a town over, on March 9, 2026.

Senior class trip: They drove to the Pacific Northwest with Mr. Greg Iverson, their English teacher and superintendent, exploring areas near the Cascades and Washington coast. 

Graduating class tradition: The graduating class gets to pick out the color of their ceremonial gowns. One year, when the graduating class was made up of three boys, they chose camo. This year, graduates chose black. 

How they deal with sports: No schools are close enough to co-op with any other school. Instead, administrators pull kids up from 8th grade to fill out the team. During Kalen Martinell’s junior year, they didn’t have enough boys for a basketball team. He drove to Dillon everyday to practice and play there.

Proximity to a big box store: One hour and thirty minutes (the Walmart in Rexburg, ID).

Gus Huntsman, senior

Gus Huntsman, right, works through a math problem in class alongside the other two seniors, Kalen Martinell and Luke Wendt, March 9, 2026, in Lima. The three seniors share most of their classes and are occasionally joined by two juniors.
Gus Huntsman, center, talks with fellow seniors Kalen Martinell and Luke Wendt in the Lima School parking lot May 21, 2026, in Lima, the day before he left for Wyoming to attend welding school and live with his girlfriend following their high school graduation earlier that week.

Kalen Martinell, senior

Kalen Martinell helps round up newborn calves and their mothers into a single pasture on the Martinell family ranch March 8, 2026, in Dell. Martinell will attend Montana State University in the fall of 2026 to study agricultural business and hopes to return to run the family ranch one day. He worries there won’t be a school in Lima for his future children.
Kalen Martinell shoots a basket during his first period gym class with Lima’s senior and junior classes March 9, 2026, in Lima. When Martinell was a junior, there weren’t enough students to fill a basketball team at Lima, so he drove to Dillon, a Class A school, after school every day to play on their team. He was used to playing every second of every game at Lima, but he was one of many players at Dillon.

Luke Wendt, senior

Luke Wendt laughs with X and Kalen Martinell during English class March 10, 2026, in Lima. Wendt plans to earn his private pilot’s license after graduation and eventually hopes to fly medical evacuation helicopters.
Photos of students with wildlife they harvested and hang in the classroom of Mr. Greg Iverson, Lima’s English teacher and superintendent, March 10, 2026, in Lima. With so few teachers, many serve multiple roles.
Kalen Martinell and Luke Wendt pass out jerseys to local kids during a free community basketball clinic after school on March 9, 2026, in Lima. The clinic is open to everyone in the community and is designed to help attract homeschoolers to the school.
Old basketball and track trophies sit in the trophy case at the Lima school on March 9, 2026, in Lima. The school competes in Class C, which is for schools with 1 to 100 students.
Kalen Martinell, Luke Wendt and Gus Huntsman all attend class together where Wendt’s mom subsitutes teaches on March 9, 2026, in Lima. The three seniors share most of their classes and are occasionally joined by two juniors.

Rapelje, class of two

Town population: Approx. 96-117 • High school population: 12

Senior class trip: Students decided to save the funds they’d raised for their annual trip — the proceeds of a pop-up coffee bar they ran every other Friday morning for the school year — to help pay for college expenses.

Graduating class tradition: Unlike other graduating classes, the two seniors of 2026, Rosy Nick and Ben Broyles, said they never developed a tradition, per se. “We were not very close,” Rosy said. “I am sorry, we are a pretty boring class.”

How they deal with sports: They co-op with Reed Point, another town about a 40 mile drive southwest. 

Proximity to a big box store: A little under an hour (the Walmart in Laurel). 

Ben Broyles passes fields of wheat and beans on his way to school April 9, 2026, in Rapelje. Many of the kids who attend Rapelje School come from farming and ranching families in the surrounding area and drive long distances to get there.

Rosy Nick, senior

Rosy Nick builds a table during shop class April 9, 2026, in Rapelje. In addition to her regular coursework, Nick also takes welding and woodworking and works on the yearbook. Outside school, she works at a veterinary clinic in Columbus, hoping to pursue a career in veterinary medicine.
Old portraits of graduating classes hang in the hallways of the school on April 8, 2026, in Rapelje.
Rosy Nick stretches before attempting the high jump at a track meet April 10, 2026, in Laurel. Outside of school Nick, enjoys snowboarding and skiing.
Rosy Nick eats lunch with her friends Lilyan and X on April 9, 2026, in Rapelje. The entire middle school and high school eat lunch together everyday, including the teachers.
Rosy Nick participates in a debate during class, arguing against the legality of euthanasia, with her friend and classmate Lilyan on April 9, 2026, in Rapelje.

Ben Broyles, senior

Ben Broyles warms up on the football field before track practice April 9, 2026, in Rapelje. Broyles plays six-man football in the fall for Rapelje, which co-ops with Reed Point to field a team.
Ben Broyles ties his shoes before running in the 100-meter dash at a track meet April 10, 2026, in Laurel. Broyles is the second of six boys in his family and grew up helping his dad and grandfather farm their land.
Ben Broyles works with history and PE teacher Blake Erfle to judge and score their fellow students during a debate on April 9, 2026, in Rapelje.
Ben Broyles walks into the Rapelje Evangelical Church after track practice to help his parents, who run a youth group for local kids, April 8, 2026, in Rapelje. The Broyles family attends church in Billings but still participates in their local church’s programming.
Homes glow in the early morning light April 10, 2026, in Rapelje. Two main streets run parallel through town, with the school serving as its central focal point.

Willow Creek, class of one

Town population: 162 • High school population: 7

The Willow Creek football field overlooks the Tobacco Root mountain range May 15, 2026, in Willow Creek. With only seven students in the high school during the 2025-2026 school year, the school is too small to field its own football team.

Senior class trip: Tori Schumacher went to Washington, D.C, this year. Also in attendance: her English teacher (mom) and dad.

Graduating class tradition: Designing and painting a brick in the school hallway to represent their time there.

How they deal with sports: Co-ops with Whitehall, about 26 miles west, for team sports, or they compete alone in track and cross country.

Proximity to a big box store: A little over thirty minutes (the Target in Bozeman).

Tori Schumacher, senior

Tori Schumacher gathers with Michaela Fry, Audriauna Steele and Cassie Schmitt before they head out on their “Operation Field Trip” to southeast Idaho, May 15, 2026, in Willow Creek. Each year Willow Creek High School plans and takes a multiday field trip to a nearby state to experience life outside Montana.
Tori Schumacher works on her college-level online math course May 14, 2026, in Willow Creek. As the only student in her classes, Schumacher can work at her own pace and have more input into the material she studies. For her second semester of science, she decided to focus on botany.
Tori Schumacher listens as Tara Schumacher, her mother and the English teacher, goes over a story in their textbook May 14, 2026, in Willow Creek. As the only student in the junior and senior grades, Tori is often alone in her core classes.
Photos of old graduating classes from Willow Creek line the school hallway May 14, 2026, in Willow Creek. The school houses all grades, from kindergarten through 12th, in a single building.
Willow Creek high schoolers sit together at the back lunch table while middle schoolers sit at the front table May 14, 2026, in Willow Creek. The school offers a hot lunch to all students and staff every day, though some students pack their own.
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Lauren Miller is a multimedia journalist and visual storyteller at Montana Free Press. She is 2025 Visual Fellow with Report For America/Catchlight. A graduate of Syracuse University, she previously worked at the Casper Star-Tribune and Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

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