north kenai elementary school

In the early days when there were few residents, before Nikiski was named, most people referred to  this area simply as the North Road or North Kenai. Eventually there were enough children living in the area to justify building the North Kenai Elementary School, a small eight-room building. As the population grew, more classrooms and general purpose rooms were added. The name was changed to Nikiski Elementary in the 1970s. 

Mike Huhndorf remembers life at school:

"When I went to school there for the first full year in the fourth grade (1964/65), it was called the North Kenai Elementary School. There were eight rooms and no gym. Two of the rooms were a library and multipurpose room where we ate lunch.  

"We didn't have a mascot name until I was in fifth grade [1966] when Jerry Jordan put out the idea and a contest to draw a logo. The name Roughnecks was chosen and Peter Rounds drew the state of Alaska with an oil derrick running through it. Jordan ordered up a bunch of black and gold sweat shirts and they could be seen all over the north Road. 

"Leo Spencer was the janitor when I started and dad was hired the winter of 1965. The playground was a gravel lot with no swings, although Jordan had some playground equipment put in during the summer of 1966 as Boy Scout project. I remember helping to pour the cement for all of it. We put in swings, a maypole, teeter-totter, and monkey bar. There were some tether ball poles already in place now that remember. They doubled as volleyball poles too. An old yellow homemade pipe swing had been put in during my fifth grade year. 

"We had seasons for borough school events. Each month had it's own sport or academic event. I remember softball, soccer, and ping-pong (which I now call table tennis). There was also a forensic meet and spelling bee. All these events were hosted by the various schools. North Kenai Elementary hosted the ping pong tournament, Soldotna softball, and Sterling soccer. Kenai Elementary had the forensic meet and Tustumena the Spelling Bee. 

"There was no wrestling or skiing until Jerry Jordan introduced both. Having Jordan as my sixth grade teacher, I remember at the impetus of my mother he bought about a hundred pairs of long white Army surplus skies and we spent a number of school afternoons cutting them down and putting in bindings. We made a few trips as class skiing to the lake in back of the school. Wally Sidback took the program over when Jordan left. 

"As far as wrestling, Jordan cobbled together some gym mats and held PE session wrestling in the classroom. There were three sections. All three were zipped up with two part folding mats. It took the whole class to sit around the sections and hold them together while two boys wrestled. Jordan even had an exhibition in front of the PTA on night. I remember getting pinned by Hep Porter whose older brother Willy was a state champion. Jordan also had class gathering nights and we'd all go into Kenai and watch the Kardinal team wrestle. R.L. Parker, Willy Porter, and Greg Encelewski were the stars then. All sports were done by all of as classes at recess. We had all the equipment including bats and hard rubber  softballs, soccer, dodge ball, and officiated our our games."

By the 1990s, the team name had been changed to the Knights. In the mid-1990s it was changed to the Bullfrogs, possibly because of the Principal, Betty Leonard's, well-known affinity for frogs. She was killed in an auto accident in 1993 and the change may have been in her honor.

In 2004 Nikiski  Elementary School closed and became vacant. It was adopted as a recreational facility by the North Peninsula Recreation Service Area and repurposed as a rec center.