Ramona Schools

Centre USD 397

Ramona students attend The Centre School District. It was established in 1958 and is a rural community consisting of 400 square miles along the scenic Flint Hills of Kansas. It is comprised of the six communities of Lincolnville, Lost Springs, Ramona, Tampa and Pilsen located in Marion county and Burdick in Morris county. The district's location is ideally located, about an hour drive from the center of several larger cities including Salina, Manhattan, Emporia and Wichita. The K-12 building is located on a 25-acre tract off Hwy 77, two miles north of Lincolnville. Centre has been on the cutting edge of creating an engaging learning environment for students. People have come from across the state to visit our little school in the middle of the wheat field to see what "could be" for students and to get ideas for student engagement, which includes:

• Small class sizes 
• Teachers that care and help prepare students for life after graduation
• Technology driven, 1:1 Apple iPad initiative
• Strong emphasis in Project-Based Learning, which includes a student run coffee shop "The Centre Perk", iHigh livestream
• Character education
• Vibrant Leadership Team and Teachers

Centre also houses the Kansas Online Learning Program which is a virtual learning environment that allows non-traditional students a way to earn their high school diploma or work on furthering their education in an at-home setting.

(Source- USD 397-www.usd397.com)

Ramona Lifestyle

Ramona is a community of 120+ residents, tucked away in north central Marion County, near the Marion-Dickinson county line.  The town is just off the beaten path of the Santa Fe Trail, and on the distant edge of the scenic Flint Hills. Ramona is a quiet rural community with only five streets, and not a stoplight to be found!  Not much traffic either, except on Memorial Day and the 4th of July.  That’s why we say that in Ramona “a traffic jam is two parked cars and a dog in the road,” and even the dog in the road is rare these days, because folks are pretty good at keeping their dogs at home.

Ramona is an excellent community for families as well as elder citizens, who appreciate a quiet, and supportive community. 

(Source- City of Ramona-www.ramonaks.com)

Ramona Transportation

Surrounded by farm land, Ramona is six miles west off of Highway 77.  There’s a Model-T truck on 360th to point the way. The nearest large towns are Herington (12 miles northeast) and Hope (7 miles north).

(Source- City of Ramona-www.ramonaks.com)

Ramona Local Attractions/Activities

Ramona is home to the Trinity Lutheran Church. Surrounding towns have a variety of restaurants and attractions like Al’s Café and the Marion Reservoir.

Ramona –History

The Ramona area was one of the last to be settled in Marion County. The first settlers arrived in the early 1880s. If the Kansas, Nebraska and Chicago railroad had not been routed through this part of Marion County, Ramona would never have existed. The town was founded by the speculative Golden Belt Town Company, which filed a town plat in April 1887.

Mr. John Noll, who sold the land to the Golden Belt Town Company, suggested the town be named Shields, Kansas, in honor of J.B. Shields, Ramona's first school teacher, and a man beloved by the community. However the railroad discovered that there was already another town with this name, on the Missouri Pacific railroad line, in western Kansas. So the name Ramona was chosen instead. There are three suggestions as to where the name came from, and they may have all had an influence: Ramona was the name of a beautiful Indian maiden; Ramona was the title of a well-known novel, by Helen Hunt Jackson, describing the mistreatment of the Indians by white settlers and the U.S. Government; Ramona was the name of a popular song of the era.

The first settlers arrived in the early 1880s and had names like Ausherman, Shirk, Strickler, Buttel, Sondergard, Weber, Oyster, Fike, Brandt, Applegate, Kramer, Brunner, Brechbill, Albrecht, Helbach, Bernhardt, Deines, Schneider, Hanschu, Domann, Sader and Schubert.  Some of these families had emigrated straight from Europe, and as the names indicate, many were of German ancestry.

The history of land ownership in Ramona dates back to when the land was owned by Spain.  On July 16, 1799, Manuel De Lisa, a New Orleans merchant, petitioned the Lt. Governor at New Orleans for two grants of land (one for himself and one for his brother).  He asked for 6,000 arpens each. (An arpen is a French term of measurement and equals about one acre.) Marion County Deed Book B shows that Manuel Lisa had 6,439.32 acres in Marion County, and the Ramona area was part of this acreage.

When Manuel De Lisa died in 1820, he willed half of his land to his nephew and the other half to his wife, Mary.  After Mary died, her executor sold the land to A.W. Allen of Kansas City for $4,804.58 in 1870.  The land that was to become Ramona was sold several times before the town was platted in 1887.

Ramona has always been a small community, however, in order to incorporate in 1909, there had to be at least 250 citizens to qualify as a third class city. It petitioned for incorporation December 14, 1909 and the Board of County Commissioners gave its approval January 3, 1910.

(Source- City of Ramona-www.ramonaks.com)