Archives
Marion Independent School Foundation & Alumni Association is home to a variety of artifacts spanning the long history of Marion Schools. In fact, the 1879 Marion Alumni Association was the first such Alumni Association registered in the state of Iowa, and Marion is the fourth oldest school district in the state.
The Foundation digitized copies of the Marion High School yearbook, The Quill, some student newspapers such as The Vox, early class photo composites, and a few other documents we have in our files. The items date from 1893 to 2021.
This 2022 project was supported through an Iowa Historic Preservation grant from Linn County Historical Society and by the Historical Resource Development Program of the State Historical Society of Iowa.
The Foundation hopes to periodically add to this archive.
Additional sources for historical Marion school information:
Marion High School Online Kiosk
Marion High School Boys Basketball History
Marion Heritage Center & Museum
School Newspapers
Thanks to the efforts of Steve Roth a number of school newspapers are now available for viewing online. In 2025, Steve scanned the original newspapers which are housed at the high school. Additional issues were found in the Foundation’s digital archive, while others were located and photographed by Steve’s brother Jim in the bound volumes of the Marion Sentinel at the Marion Heritage Center. In total, over 600 issues consisting of well over 5000 pages of material were processed. While not all issues of every school year could be found, the collection is fairly complete.
Issues of The Vox and The Signal high school newspapers can be found for most years from the first year of publication in 1935-36 through 2018-2019. In addition, an assortment of The Messenger and The Indian Echo junior high newspapers, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s, are also included.
This material was uploaded to the school’s Vox website by MHS journalism teacher Gretchen Mundorf and can be found at: