Once again, the Hortonville ghost returns By Ray Barrington News-Chronicle This week, the news from Hortonville is that teachers in that community had unionized after 29 years. Hortonville ... teachers ... union. Some of you see where I'm going on this. Actually, it was a column I had planned for next March, the 30th anniversary of the strike. I was a junior at Hortonville High School in 1974, editor of the school paper (yes, even then), and then the strike happened. For those of you who don't remember, 84 of the 88 teachers walked out - teachers strikes were considered public employee strikes in those days - and were summarily fired by the School Board. Replacement teachers were hired, and teachers from all over the state came to Hortonville to protest. From the Web site of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state teachers union: "For those who were there the images are still fresh: picket lines made up of 500 Wisconsin teachers; helmeted deputy sheriffs bused to Hortonville from five neighboring counties; carloads of strikebreakers driving through picket lines; a tough anti-union school board; the WEAC executive secretary and more than 70 HEA supporters arrested for acts of civil disobedience. No one who was there will forget the Hortonville Vigilante Association, a small band of idle men who delighted in harassing pickets and escorting strikebreakers through picket lines." If you want to read more, a recent issue of Voyageur, the excellent local history magazine, looked at the issue in a cover story. The issue eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled the School Board had the right to fire the teachers. The issue made national news. But to those of us who lived there, major issues fell before the daily problems. Students were home for a while, then forced to adjust to new teachers, sometimes every day. I had one hand me his books when I ran into him downtown, saying he couldn't take any more and that I should return the books to the office. Another dropped the N-word during a discussion about latitude and longitude and how one line designated where certain races lived. Meanwhile our old teachers - many of them friends - marched outside, for reasons we didn't fully understand. The after-school routine turned into classes - with almost no studying - a walk through the line and a run home to catch the nightly news. A town had been split. If nothing else, Hortonville changed the views of public employee strikes. Arbitration became the rule, and there were no more strikes. (Since 1993, the qualifying economic offer, or QEO, has been the rule, to the chagrin of unions who say it is keeping raises below the inflation rate.) This week, the teachers in the district joined the Wisconsin Federation of Teachers, the other state teachers union. The teachers had basically represented themselves in the interim; according to the Appleton Post-Crescent, the WEAC had refused recognition of any Hortonville union as long as any replacement teachers remain in the district. (WEAC officials say there are about 20.) And nearly 30 years later, it seems, I'm doomed to hear about Hortonville. The last time I wrote about this, a few years ago, one of the current teachers invited me over to the school to hear about "the good things" going on there. And I'm sure there are plenty of them as there are at any school. But a big part of me wants to put Hortonville, its teachers, its School Board and all that behind me. It's been almost 30 years. Maybe it's time to graduate.