School classes were Hugh Cooper, Henry D. Graves, John Avers, Mrs. P.H. Burgstressor, Mary Zeller (daughter of George and Sarah Zeller) and Catherine Blythe (Mrs. Frederick Blythe). ²⁴ The Sedalia Union Sunday School formed a board of directors to oversee the School's operations and to make purchases of any needed materials from funds received from the weekly collections taken. The first officers of the Sedalia Union Sunday School were: ²⁵

Hugh Cooper                           Mrs. Frank Pierce
Anna B. Cooper                       Henry Graves
G.M. Burgstressor                    C. R. Strong
Mrs. P.H. Burgstressor              Mrs. Call
George Zeller                            X.A. Gibbs
Mary Zeller

 Other charter members of the Sedalia Union Sunday School were

            Frederick & Catherine Blythe
            Sarah Zeller (Mrs. George Zeller)
            Mary Burgstressor
            Anna Graves (Mrs. Henry Graves)
            Christian & J. Benedict Berger
            Susan Berger
            Mary Blodgett

           In the years that followed, area ministers from Riley and Manhattan churches would occasionally agree to come to the Sedalia school and hold services. Rev. John McKeon and Rev. William Campbell from the Manhattan Presbyterian Church were two ministers who frequently conducted services at Sedalia. 26 Finally, Rev. Campbell agreed to hold services at the school house regularly. Each Sunday Will Cooper, son of Hugh and Anna Cooper, would drive the 7 miles into Manhattan and bring Rev. Campbell to Sedalia and then would take him back to Manhattan.²⁷ Services were held in the afternoon as the minister would hold his regular service in the morning.

            Around 1889, Rev. Campbell and several Sedalia families, probably the Coopers, Blythes, and Burgstressors among others, proposed that the community construct a church building. The response to their proposal was only mildly enthusiastic. As Margaret Burgstressor wrote in a letter, “(There) were ... enough willing members to get the charter, (but) so many were only willing to be friendly toward having a church. They had to be coaxed into the church work." ²⁸  The devastating drought of the 1880's probably was a major factor in the community's hesitant reception to the idea. But Rev. Campbell and his committee pressed on. Hugh Cooper donated two acres of land directly across the road west from the school house on which to build the church and place a

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