On April 1, 1980, the Daily News ran an article about 9-year-old Shanti Thiel, who “said she found her first brush with public schools a bore.”

Shanti “tested at an 11th-grade level in spelling, and an eighth-grade level in all other studies except math. She scored at a sixth-grade level in the area of math.”

Warren District Court Judge Gordon Johnson ordered her parents to send Shanti to public school or lose custody. The Thiels were homeschooling for religious reasons. Homeschooling became legal in 1992.

– “Way Back When in Warren County” is compiled by researchers at the Warren County Public Library and appears twice weekly in the Bowling Green Daily News. For more information about the library, visit warrenpl.org.