Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/73

This page needs to be proofread.
STATE EX REL. KNOX v. STEVENS
49

draws his name from the petition. LaLonde v. Barron County, 80 Wis. 380; Littell v. Vermillion County, 198 Ill. 205; Hays v. Jones, 27 Ohio St. 231.

Grace, J. The plantiffs presented to Frank P. Allen, district judge of the third judicial district, a petition for an alternative writ of mandamus, based on certain affidavits, which was later heard before George M. McKenna, judge of the district court of the same judicial district of Dickey county.

A statement of the material facts will aid in understanding the issues here presented.

Keystone School District No. 7 is located in Dickey county, and in extent comprises a congressional township. Under the authority of § 1147. Comp. Laws, as amended by chapter 135, Session Laws of 1915, and as amended by chapter 197 of the Session Laws of 1919, and on the 10th day of July, 1920, a petition signed by fifty-five resident electors of the school district was filed with the board of county commissioners of Dickey county, asking for a division of the school district.

Faith Stevens is the duly qualified and acting superintendent of schools of Dickey county, and, as such, acted with the board of county commissioners in determining the desirability and necessity of the organization of the new district, and certain steps were taken looking toward the organization of the new school district.

The petition was set to be heard before the county commissioners on the zoth day of August, 1920, this being the adjourned date of the regular July meeting. The county superintendent published notice of hearing of the petition for six consecutive weeks in the Farmers’ Sentinel, a weekly newspaper published at Ellendale, Dickey county. The notice was served personally on A. A. Suszycki, Charles Newton, and Florence Golden, all members of the school board of Keystone School District.

There were 172 legal school electors in the school district, and 78 of these resided in the proposed new school district. On the date of the hearing of the petiton, August 20th, there was filed with the commissioners a protest or remonstrance against the organization of the new district, signed by 133 school electors, resident in the district. An affidavit of the clerk of the school district was also filed with the commissioners. Eleven of those who signed the remonstrance had signed the original petition for the organization of the new district, and each of them was a resident, tax-