A Final Ride for The Orme School and Orme Summer Camp: The End of Arizona’s Last Ranch School

With the closing of The Orme School and Orme Summer Camp at the conclusion of the 2025 academic year, Arizona bids farewell to the last of its legendary Western ranch schools. For nearly a century, The Orme School stood as a rare fusion of rigorous academics and the cowboy spirit, where students learned not just in classrooms, but in the saddle, on the range, and under the vast Arizona sky.

Founded in 1929 by Charles H. “Uncle Chick” Orme, Sr. and Minna Vrang Orme, The Orme School was the final surviving ranch school in Arizona, a state that once boasted more than four dozen such institutions. As Arizona Highways noted, ranch schools peaked in the 1930s, offering horseback riding, cattle roundups, and pack trips alongside elite college-preparatory education. But while others faded with time, only Orme maintained its deep connection to ranching, its students still doing chores, riding in roundup, and attending nightly study hall into the 21st century.

Now, with its doors set to close, The Orme School joins a storied chapter of Arizona’s educational history, leaving behind a legacy as one of the nation’s most unique and influential boarding schools.


A School Born from the Dust and Dreams of the West

The story of The Orme School begins with a caravan—not of cattle, but of hope and ambition. In 1929, the Orme family left their dairy farm in Phoenix and set off toward the high desert of Central Arizona, traveling what was then little more than a cow path to their newly purchased Quarter Circle V Bar Ranch.

Not wanting to send their children 75 miles away to Mayer for school, Uncle Chick and Aunt Minna petitioned Yavapai County to open an extension school on their ranch. With a single teacher and $10 per student from the county, Orme’s first classroom was a humble one-room schoolhouse, attended by seven students—including the Orme children and the ranch foreman’s kids.

But even from those early days, education at Orme wasn’t limited to books and blackboards. Students milked cows, gathered eggs, maintained vehicles, and worked the carrot patch, making up lost school time on Saturdays. They also mounted up for field trips and rodeos, learning the land as much as their lessons. As the school grew, so did its reputation, attracting students from prominent families across the country, drawn by the allure of a real Western education.


A National Reputation and a True Western Education

Over the decades, Orme expanded into a fully accredited, nationally respected college preparatory school, but it never lost its Western roots. By the 1950s, Orme students weren’t just studying literature, science, and math—they were also roping, marksmanship, archaeology, and photography.

In 1959, students even participated in an archaeological dig of a Yavapai cave on Orme Ranch, working under the guidance of a Museum of Northern Arizona archaeologist. It was the kind of education no Eastern boarding school could offer.

By the late 20th century, the school had produced an impressive roster of alumni, including governors, congressmen, Hollywood screenwriters, and even a NASA scientist.

One notable alumnus, writer and producer Jeb Rosebrook, credited Orme with inspiring his creativity. He later wrote the screenplay for Junior Bonner, the 1972 film starring Steve McQueen, which was filmed in Prescott and captured the rugged spirit of the Arizona cowboy way of life.


Hollywood, Presidents, and the Spirit of Orme

The Orme School drew attention far beyond the Arizona desert, earning the admiration of Hollywood stars and even U.S. Presidents.

Jimmy Stewart, whose stepson Ron McLean attended Orme from 1958 to 1963, was so taken with the school that he narrated a promotional video, calling it “a very special kind of school, where students not only learn things but learn the meanings of things.” Stewart later wrote to Headmaster Charles H. Orme, Jr., saying,
“Commencement Day at Orme was a very, very important and exciting day for me. I was a proud parent, and I was certainly happy to have the opportunity to speak to the Senior Class.”

President Ronald Reagan also gave Orme’s 1970 commencement address. His daughter, Patti Reagan, was a student at Orme, and Reagan—known for his wit—once walked into the school’s kitchen and loudly announced, “I want to meet the man who can make my daughter scrub a pot rack three times until she gets it right.”

Beyond the classroom, Orme was a way of life. The school’s Mavericks vs. Broomtails tally system—where students competed in academics, sports, and even room-cleaning—helped build camaraderie. The Annual Orme Rodeo gave students a chance to showcase their horsemanship, while the Orme Summer Camp immersed campers in trail riding, survival skills, and life on a working cattle ranch.


The Last Ride: The Closing of Orme and the End of the Ranch School Era

Despite its deep traditions, The Orme School could not outride the changing times. The economic pressures of maintaining a school and working ranch, along with declining enrollment and rising operational costs, ultimately led the Board of Trustees to make the heartbreaking decision to close in 2025.

The closure of Orme marks the end of an era. It is the final chapter in the history of Arizona’s once-thriving ranch school movement, the last of the schools that blended academia with cowboy grit, science with survival, and discipline with discovery.

As Arizona Highways wrote,
“A lot of alumni yearn for the days we had. The world changes. Those days are gone forever.”

But while Orme’s classrooms will empty and its barns will grow quiet, the spirit of the school will live on—in its alumni, in the lessons learned on the range, and in the stories of those who once called The Orme School home.

As Charlie Orme, Jr., the man who dedicated his life to the school, once said:
“You measure a school not by its buildings, but by the people it sends out into the world. Orme students carry our values with them, wherever they go.”


A Final Campfire, A Last Goodbye

And so, as Orme’s final campfire dies down, we say goodbye in the only way that feels right—with the words that have closed countless nights under the Arizona stars, sung softly by generations of Orme students and campers:

Each campfire lights anew
The flame of friendship true
The joy we’ve had in knowing you
Will last our whole lives through.

And as the embers die away
We wish that we could ever stay
But since we cannot have our way
We’ll meet again some other day.

Farewell, Orme. We will meet again some other day.


Credits

This obituary was written using information from:

  • Kathy Montgomery, Arizona Highways, “Reading, Writing and … Ranching.”
  • Samuelson, S. A., & Bingmann, M. (1984). The Orme School on the Quarter Circle V Bar Ranch. The Journal of Arizona History, 25(4), 399-422. https://doi.org/41696715