May 9—Old-time trapper rendezvous probably weren’t much different than Thursday’s gathering of 430 fourth graders at the Nez Perce County Fairgrounds in Lewiston: plenty of games, activity at dozens of stations, general good cheer and horses — all for a common purpose.
This was the 31st annual Fourth Grade Idaho History Rendezvous.
Fourth grade students from every Lewiston public school including five private schools tried out some old things for the first time. It could get spirited. There was this quick debate between two kids learning the Stick Game, a traditional Native American pastime played for fun or for stakes.
“Hey, that’s cheating,” the girl said.
“It’s not cheating. It’s strategy,” the boy replied.
This station taught three Native games, which include a game like cornhole with pine cones and a pole and hoop game. Eighth grade students were actually the teachers for eight of the stations. Sacajewea Middle School students taught the games station, as well as rope-tying and butter-making.
Hailey Tiffany, 13, a Sacajawea eighth grader, set up the Native games station with two other students. Ironically, she and her fellow eighth graders are the only students in the past three decades who did not get to attend the Rendezvous: canceled in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That year, fourth graders didn’t meet for an annual jetboat trip up to Dug Bar either.
Hailey, who wore a T-shirt of Tupac Shakur with the words “Don’t trust anyone,” said she doesn’t feel cheated. That year they still got to do things, like learn to carve canoes in soap blocks.
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“Now I get to help with it, so,” Hailey said.
Jenifer Middle School eighth grade students also designed and presented stations. Norah Leister, 13, and Elli Acord, 14, discovered a shared passion for wild flowers.
“We were prepared to fight the other students for this,” Norah joked.
Elli watched a group of fourth graders work on pencil sketchings of native flowers freshly gathered near Waha: syringa, lupine, larkspur, balsa root brightly colored the station.
“They’re so pretty,” she said of the flowers. “They’re cool.” She was particularly interested in Indian paintbrush, a plant she’d just learned about.
Most stations were run by adult volunteers. For instance, Mike Nagle, 69, of Potlatch, brought down five Belgium draft horses and gave the kids rides on horse-drawn flatbed wagons around the fairground as guitarist and retired teacher Brent Carlson of Anatone led students through old-timey songs.
It’s tough not to smile at the spectacle of a wagonload of kids putting their full heart and lungs into a well known tragic western folk ballad: “Oh my darlin,’ Oh my darlin,’ Oh my darlin’ Clementine!”
The Rendezvous ran from 9:30 to 1 p.m. and, more than likely, will be back next year a 32nd time to give the kids a chance to enjoy the history they spent this year learning.
Ferguson may be contacted at dferguson@lmtribune.com.