Hidden Valley 9/25/26

“My dear fellow” said Ednold, as he tossed my old duffle coat and bowler at me, “put those on.  We haven’t a moment to lose.”  It was the first Friday after the autumnal equinox and I was expecting, as I am every Friday in autumn, to accompany my eccentric friend to a game of football.  Commonly this would involve a later departure than seemed to be required on this gloomy recent afternoon.  “Why the haste, if I may inquire?”, I asked, somewhat taken aback.

“This will be no ordinary high school we are going to this evening, Watson”, said Ednold.  “This school presents a particular challenge.”

“And what is the nature of this challenge that requires such haste?”

“This school is hidden, my friend...”, Ednold explained as we opened the doors of The Bucket and tumbled inside.  Once he had arranged himself comfortably on the passenger side and buckled himself in, he continued.  “…Or maybe the whole valley has been hidden.  I’m not entirely clear on that from just seeing the name, but someone has gone to the trouble of hiding something, and I anticipate this trip will be a true test of my abilities of observation and analysis and may require a jot more time than we are accustomed to.  The game is afoot!”  Coincidentally, my foot was a foot, too, and I put it on the gas and we got on the road.

Ednold continued to elaborate as I worked my way through traffic to the edge of town.  “The first clue I have unearthed is that Hidden Valley High School is part of the Three Rivers School District.  It’s a huge district of roughly 1,700 square miles, Watson, reaching all the way to the California border.”  

I took this hint and headed south for a few hours, during which time Ednold sat pensively, only breaking his silence to occasionally sing along to the Doobie Brothers.  Ednold is not without musical ability, but I refrained from complaining only by reminding myself that the noise he produced was facilitating the contemplative skills of that great mind. Even the rain we encountered south of Cottage Grove, which was absolutely torrential, failed to elicit comment. Upon reaching the city of Grants Pass Ednold quickly deduced that the Grants Pass address of the school district offices was only a red herring, obviously planted by some nefarious scoundrel.  He explained to me in great detail that though the district completely surrounds the city, Grants Pass has its own district, and none of the three high schools in the Three Rivers district are located in Grants Pass.  It was a clever trick worthy of Moriarty himself, but my astute associate was not to be so easily thrown off the scent.

A few miles later Ednold continued to elucidate his reasoning.  “Mustering all my powers of ratiocination, Watson, I have deduced that the three rivers in question are the Rogue, the Illinois, and the Applegate.  Having already passed the Rogue in Grants Pass, we are now continuing south on Highway 238 toward the town of Murphy and the Applegate River, in search of our next clue.”

I seldom doubt my esteemed companion when he is in the midst of an important case, but I must own that I was getting close to throwing in the proverbial towel and taking the route to the Illinois Valley when suddenly something caught Ednold’s eye.  Call it intuition, call it a keen nose for evidence, or call it a huge sign that said School with a big arrow pointing right, but the old bloodhound had sniffed out that final, vital clue that led us straight to the school. 

“Well, Watson, not only have we arrived”, said Ednold, clearly pleased with himself, “but we have arrived with time to spare.”  I congratulated the shrewd sleuth, but I still had one more question that had not yet been answered to my satisfaction.

“Well done, old chum.  You truly are an intellectual force of nature.  But, Ednold, what kind of school is this, exactly?” 

“Secondary, my dear Watson.  Secondary!”

It was at this point that I noticed Watson scribbling in his little notebook, so as he was preoccupied with his notetaking I snatched his pen and deposited it in my jacket pocket.  Since Mrs. Ednold wasn’t available this week I had asked Watson to join me.  He doesn’t get out much and I thought he might enjoy the opportunity, and it was nice to have him along.  He is a useful, if slightly dim, companion, but it makes me nervous the way he’s always writing in that silly notebook.  He’s not always the most reliable narrator, to be honest, and he has a tendency to be a tad overdramatic, so I took it upon myself to write the rest of this story after we had returned home.  I had deduced many other truths about Hidden Valley High School than I had related to Watson, and I didn’t want him leaving out any facts salient to this case. 

The Josephine County School District has been around since at least the 1880s, but the only high school in the county was in Grants Pass until the town of Cave Junction opened a high school in 1950.  By the mid-1970s there were as many as 2,400 students at Grants Pass High, and the County School District decided a change was in order.  In 1977 both North Valley, just north of Grants Pass, and Hidden Valley, just south of Grants Pass, were opened, relieving the extraordinarily high enrollment at Grants Pass High, and in 1994 the Josephine County District became the Three Rivers District.

Watson’s obsequious praise notwithstanding, I feel compelled to admit that this case did not stretch my observational skills to their limit, as the locals had done a singularly poor job of hiding the valley and the school.  It’s all right out in the open for any passing fool to find, and at this point I’m not even sure why they continue the charade that it is in any way hidden.  Of course, I will not be mentioning this to Watson. The actor Ty Burrell didn’t seem to have any trouble finding the school.  He graduated there and even played football for the Mustangs before starring in the TV show Modern Family.  I never saw it, but Ty won a couple of Emmy awards for his acting so he must be pretty good.

The school is south of the Applegate River outside the little town of Murphy, named for a guy from New York City who came west and filed a land claim there in 1854.  Eventually, Barney Murphy sold out to people who built a mill and hotel, and the little place became a popular stop along the trading trails through the Siskiyous.  By 1875 there was a Murphy post office, and it’s home to the school district offices today.

Hidden Valley also draws students from other small communities in the area, including New Hope, Provolt, and Williams, and we had made such good time that we had some to kill, and I asked Watson to drive us a few more miles south to the Jackson County line in Provolt to see what we could see. What we saw was the Applegate Valley wine trail.  We didn’t see it all, but Hwy. 238 is chock full of wineries as it winds its way between Grants Pass and Jacksonville.  They’ve made the valley into a destination for wine lovers, and they aren’t trying to hide this one.  

Then we drove back to the school in time to pick out a prime parking spot in the lot in front of the school. It's definitely a rural school, but the way Grants Pass keeps expanding, it probably won't be out in the country forever. As it is, the school is situated on a hillside with the playing field down below, so we left The Bucket and followed the paved path downhill. We each gave the lady $7 and went in the gate to the strange-looking uncovered grandstand that functions a lot better than it looks. Why does it have three separate press boxes? Even Ednold hasn't solved that mystery. It all works, though, and concrete with wooden benches beats aluminum every time.

The band occupied the far north section with the students next to them. With no seating for the visitors across the field, they were assigned the south side, with the rest of us filling up the spaces in between. Despite the rain further north, it was a beautiful warm and dry evening in the Applegate Valley. A slight chill set in after the sun went down, but even that was comfortable.

The Hidden Valley High School Mustangs played in the 2A state championship game in just their second year of existence.  They lost that game to Gladstone and it took them 41 years to get back to another one in 2019, which they also lost, to Santiam Christian, at the 3A level.  Since then, they’ve been competing in the 4A classification, and this season are in Special District 4 along with their opponents for this game, the Phoenix Pirates.  The Mustangs are 1-2 after 3 games, while the Pirates come in at 2-1.

Probably the less said about the play on the field, the better. Both teams had some good players and things would occasionally work just like they were supposed to, but there was never any consistent execution by either side. The highlight was a 43-yard field goal by the Phoenix kicker just four minutes into the game, and it was all downhill from there. Phoenix managed to win by a final score of 24-8, but with the exception of that field goal all of the scoring was the result of fluke plays or mistakes by one team or the other. Each team had multiple turnovers of every imaginable type, and both teams must have had hundreds, possibly thousands, of penalty yards against them, usually coming at the least opportune time. Inexplicably both teams relied mostly on their passings games and quarterback draws, which would have made sense if... Like I said, the less, the better.

Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be any correlation between the quality of play and the quality of everything else. Hidden Valley has one of the best public address announcers, and though the crowd was big, Watson and I may have been the only two he didn't know on a first-name basis. The marching band put on a halftime show that was good, and they played songs I recognized, which is always a plus. My Mustang burger from the concession stand was tasty, though I don't know if it was actually mustang meat or not. The crowd was large and enthusiastic, the score was close into the fourth quarter, and the whole Applegate Valley really is a beautiful place for a football game, or anything else. So, once they get that football team running on all cylinders, a game at Hidden Valley will be pretty awesome. And they really didn't hide it very well, so you won't have any trouble finding it.

I relegated Watson to the shotgun seat for the ride home, so we could arrive at a decent hour. I know how he enjoys listening to me singing along with the Doobie Brothers, but I had to explain to him that I had other things on my mind. I could sense his disappointment, but he took it well. The truth is I had other things on my mind, like trying to figure out how large a 50/50 raffle jackpot would have to be at this point for me to break even after all the money I've poured into those things over the years without ever matching a single number. I'm starting to think maybe that wasn't the best way to invest for my retirement.