by Randy Turner
SCARS FROM THE TORNADO
BY RANDY TURNER
DROP CAP PUBLISHING
Copyright 2013 © Randy Turner and Drop Cap Publishing Design: David Hoover
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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ISBN-13: 978-1482571585
ISBN-10: 1482571587
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Dedicated to the students and staff at East Middle School, past and present.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
REMEMBERING ZACH WILLIAMS 1
A TEACHER’S STORIES 3
MEMORIES OF THE TORNADO 22
THE SCHOOL YEAR 55
SNAPSHOTS 82
JOPLIN TORNADO POEMS 92
PARTING THOUGHTS 114
FOREWORD
BY RYLEE HARTWELL
It was May 22, 2011, the summer fever had set in, we were ready to get out of school, or I certainly was, I was ready for high school. Things had been jam-packed that past week we were tying things up in the majority of our classes and let's just say things were starting to go haywire.
When I left East Middle School little did I know this would be the last time I would see it in the state it always has been. To say East was a good and enjoyable place was an understatement. I loved the teachers, students, and building.
School was enjoyable. We had numerous clubs such as Quiz Bowl, Color Guard, Journalism, Newspaper, Show Choir and quite a few others. These were all very prestigious things for a prestigious school.
Last evening was the first time I could visually see the complete damage that wrecked havoc on East Middle School. It was a sight of complete astonishment to me; East was gone.
Lessons of hard work and integrity have always been taught to me at home. All of these things were also taught at East Middle School throughout our days there. Even though our building may not be there, our ideas and lessons will last us all through life, and this is what makes East Middle School great, not our buildings or possessions, but the lessons that will make the first East Middle School continue to live on.
Rylee Hartwell was an eighth grader at East Middle School during the 2010-2011 school year.
REMEMBERING ZACH WILLIAMS
BY RANDY TURNER
The Joplin Tornado was devastating to members of the East Middle School family. It stripped us of our school, our homes, much of our community, our complacency, and for a time, it removed the joy from our lives.
The biggest cost of the events of May 22, 2011, was the death of one of our own, seventh grader Zach Williams.
As the 2011-2012 school year progressed, many students shared thoughts about Zach. Some had been his friends; some had never really known him.
All of them felt his loss.
One young eighth grader, a former classmate of Zach’s, may have felt that loss more deeply than the others. “The last time we talked,” she told me, “we got into an argument.” It was over something silly, she added. “I don’t even remember what it was and then I heard he was missing after the tornado.”
And soon word came that Zach was not coming back to East.
“I wish I could talk to him one more time,” she said. “It was the last thing I ever said to him and it was something mean. And he was my friend. I wish he knew how I really felt.”
I tried, with little success, to reassure her. “I am sure he knows,” I said, and that is something I truly wanted to believe, and more than that, I wanted her to believe it. From the look on her face, I am not sure the message got through. The scars of the tornado run deep.
***
The obituary information below is taken from the Bradford Funeral Home website.
Zachary Allen Williams was born June 19, 1998, at Fort Leonard Wood Memorial Community Hospital in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, to Franklin Eugene Williams and Tammy Renee Clark Niederhelman. He lost his life in the tornado at Joplin, Missouri, Sunday evening, May 22, 2011, making his age 12 years 11 months and three days.
Zach was a student at East Middle School in Joplin where he attended the seventh grade. He attended the Calvary Baptist Church in Joplin. Zach was a happy person who would strike up a conversation with anyone. He enjoyed hot wheel cars, legos, riding his bike, and spending time with his friends. He was looking forward to his summer vacation, so he could spend more time with family and read more of his favorite books.
He is preceded in death by his great grandpas, Howard Jackson and R.L. Clark, great-great grandfather Pearl Jaco, great-grandmother Maxine Clark, great-great-grandmother Gladys Jaco.
Zach is survived by his mother Tammy Niederhelman and husband Tony of Joplin, Missouri; his father Frank Williams and wife Valerie of Mayesville, North Carolina, brother Andy Williams of Mayesville, North Carolina, grandparents Earnest and Kathy Clark of Summersville, Missouri; grandparents Jim and Kathleen Williams of Summersville, Missouri, Helen and Frank Jones of Terre Haute, Indiana; great grandmother Lillie Jackson of Summersville, MO, uncle’s and aunt’s, Chad and Billie Clark and children, Austin and Brittani and future son-in-law Levi of Neosho, MO, Jim Williams of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Warren Williams and wife Vicki of St. Louis, Missouri, Cindy Heller Springfield, Missouri, several great uncles and aunts, cousins and friends.
Memorial Services were held Monday, May 30, 2011, at 1 p.m. at Bradford Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Gary Jackson officiating. Arrangements were under the care of Bradford Funeral Home of Summersville.
A TEACHER’S STORIES
THIS IS NOT MY SCHOOL
BY RANDY TURNER
“I don’t want to be here.”
It was the first time I had said the words aloud, not that it takes much courage to say the truth when you are the only one in the room.
It was difficult for me to admit after 13 years of eagerly anticipating the first day of school, anxiously awaiting the nonstop talking of eighth graders as they return from their summer adventures, but now it was out in the open.
The sign on the building said East Middle School, but this was not East Middle School. That state-of-the-art school, less than two years old, had been a product of careful planning and had been approved by Joplin R-8 voters. It was spacious, beautiful, a place that we happily showed off to visitors.
Now it was just a memory, thanks to the EF-5 tornado that ripped through the heart of my city Sunday, May 22, 2011.
It was one of 10 district buildings destroyed or severely damaged.
When I first learned the extent of the damage, I had a glimmer of hope that we would be able to return to the old South Middle School building, where I had taught for six years before we moved to East. No such luck. It, too, had been irreparably damaged.
So here I sat, in a new and unfamiliar chair, staring at rows of tables and chairs that were different from any I had seen in my rooms before, staring at bare white walls in desperate need of a splash of color. I had never been much at bulletin boards and I rarely hung posters around my classroom. My method of preparing my room for the coming school year usually consisted of creating my Writers’ Wall of Fame, a collection of topnotch papers written by students from previous years. At that moment, those papers were still in a box awaiting the call to duty that would connect my former students with the new one
s who would soon grace my classroom.
As far as I was concerned, those papers could remain in the box. I wanted to be anywhere else except at East Middle School. This was not my school; this was a last minute, stopgap measure, a building that until a few weeks before had been a Joplin Chamber of Commerce spec building. I was going to be teaching in a glorified warehouse.
The surprise was that I, and my fellow teachers were even preparing to have school at all. No one could have blamed our superintendent, Dr. C. J. Huff, if he had begged for some extra time to get things ready for the 2011-2012 school year. After all, Joplin High School was totally gone, as was Franklin Tech, our building, and seven others, including the Administration Building.
Delay, however, had never been an option. Huff, his assistants, and the Board of Education had decided immediately that delay would not be tolerated.
After moving the base of operations to North Middle School, the staff immediately began working on three distinct, but related operations determining the fate of every member of the Joplin R-8 family, preparing for summer school, and finding enough buildings to start school on time just 87 days after the tornado.
The high school was reopened in two places- the former Memorial Middle School building, which had once served as a high school, and in the former Shopko building at Northpark Mall.
Our middle school was relocated to the Crossroads Industrial Park in a spec building that had originally been designated for use by the Coca-Cola Company.
In just a few short weeks, construction crews did a remarkable job of turning the empty building into a reasonable facsimile of a school.
But as I sat in my empty room, staring at the blank walls, their work had done nothing to convince me that this structure was anything but a warehouse.
In two short hours, a “family picnic” was scheduled at this new “home.” I had never been comfortable in social situations anyway, and if I had my choice, I would have preferred to have been anywhere except this pretend East Middle School.
THE FINAL BELL
I was dead tired when I left East Middle School at about 6 p.m. Friday, May 20. It has always been my practice to stay on Friday afternoon until all papers are graded. Some teachers, even the ones who normally spend long hours of non-contract time working after school on Mondays through Thursdays, are out of the building at 3:45 p.m. on Friday and who can blame them?
It wasn’t that I was a workaholic, I just preferred grading papers in a relaxed atmosphere, where the only sounds that could be heard were the Beatles, the Beach Boys, or whatever oldies I had blaring from iTunes.
Beatles, the Beach Boys, or whatever oldies I had blaring from iTunes.
By all rights, I should have already graded my last papers for the 2011-2012 school year. We were already supposed to be a few days into summer vacation. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell that to Mother Nature. The Joplin School District missed about two weeks of classes due to snow and ice storms and we were scheduled to be in session well into June to make up those lost days.
After the final bell rang May 20, I walked across the hall to talk to eighth grade reading teacher Andrea Thomas to see how her day had gone. It was something I had done on most days ever since she had begun working for the Joplin R-8 School District and I had been assigned to be her mentor teacher. It was an arrangement that probably worked far better for me than for her. In my years as a teacher, I have never seen anyone who was as prepared to be in the classroom as Andrea was. I probably learned as much from her as she did from me. We exchanged a few notes on the day and I left her room, telling her, “Get some rest, you’re going to need it.”
Looking back on that day, I wish it had been a more meaningful conversation, words that would stay in my memory long after I teach my class. I had shared many after-school conversations with Andrea for four years. This was the last one we would have.
Andrea had already announced that she had resigned. I thought I would have two more weeks working with her. Even though she was leaving, I knew teaching at East would provide at least one more memorable moment for Andrea. Each year, my students write an essay describing their most inspirational teachers. The students choose the paper which best makes the case for the writer’s selection. This year, an eighth grader who had been inspired by Andrea wrote the paper that earned top honors in the contest. On the final day of school, that student would have presented the Most Inspirational Teacher of the Year award to Andrea Thomas.
It would have been the perfect going away gift. She would have received the award and a copy of the winning essay. Two days later, the award and the essay were destroyed in the tornado- and Andrea and her husband, Joe, had lost their house.
I left school Friday, May 20, tired, but pleased that I had no more papers to grade and I could start the next week anew. I had no idea that the 2010-2011 school year had already drawn to a close.
AFTERMATH
When the tornado hit at 5:41 p.m. Sunday, May 22, I was lying on my bedroom floor, covered with a heavy blanket waiting. KZRG had just issued a report, which later turned out be erroneous, that a tornado had touched down at 7th and Range Line, just a few blocks from the apartment complex where I live.
It soon became apparent that the tornadoes had missed my apartment and I began listening as a horrified radio reporter recited buildings that were no longer there. Being a blogger and a longtime newspaper reporter, I reacted in typical fashion. I began blogging non-stop. Just after the tornado, at 6:22 p.m. I was able to post a short item under the headline “Tornado Rips Through Joplin Rangeline.”
Stores all along Rangeline have been destroyed by a major tornado. Among the stores that have been totally wiped out was the new Walgreen at 20th and Rangeline. Other stores hit include Sonic, Pizza Hut, Lowe's, and Home Depot. People are reportedly trapped in buildings and cars.”
At that point, I knew nothing about the destruction of my school.
I would have continued blogging, but my apartment darkened, as the power went off in most of the city. I listened to KZRG through the next 12 hours, unable to sleep or eat, as the extent of the killer tornado became evident.
The next morning, I plugged my iPhone into my car and began writing a blog for Huffington Post.
The next time I saw East Middle School, or what was left of it, was two days later. I did not venture out into Joplin or Duquesne for the first day and a half after the tornado. I followed the advice of city and law enforcement officials and stayed off the streets, so I would not get in the way.
I probably would have stayed in my apartment Tuesday, as well, had it not been for the persistence of Daily Beast/Newsweek reporter Terry Greene Sterling, who had read a blog post I wrote shortly after the tornado.
Ms. Sterling sent me an e-mail the day after the tornado:
Hope you are ok and that you still have a place to live. I just saw your blog, which is why I am writing you. The Daily Beast/ Newsweek wants me to head out to Joplin on Tuesday because even though I'm based in Arizona, I am visiting relatives in Leavenworth, Kansas.
Can I give you a call? Or can you call me?
I called and she set up an appointment, telling me that she particularly wanted me to take her to East Middle School.
When she arrived the next morning, we took her car into the tornado-stricken area. It took nearly a half hour to travel a stretch of road from 7th and Duquesne into the heart of the community.
Though the publicity about the tornado had centered on Joplin, Duquesne had been hit just as hard. We inched along in bumper-to-bumper traffic, as Ms. Sterling asked me questions about the tornado and about East. Finally, about halfway to the roundabout in the center of Duquesne, we saw a long driveway leading to a house and people working out in the yard, though this was not a home that had been hit by the tornado.
Ms. Sterling wheeled her car into the driveway, rolled down her window as we pulled up to a couple working in the yard and asked if we could park the car in an area by the driveway so we could walk int
o the part of the town that had been hit by the tornado.
“Sure” the woman said, and pointed us to a spot where we could park.
As we walked along, the sounds of sirens that had punctuated the night air for hours after the tornado had been replaced by a chain saw symphony, as homeowners and others who rushed to the area to do whatever they could do to help, began the slow, painstaking process of clearing a landscape that would have seemed unthinkable just two days earlier.
Walking took us into the tornado area far faster than we would have made it had we stayed in Ms. Sterling’s car. We breezed past one car after another, stalled in traffic and moving at what seemed like an inch an hour, until we reached the roundabout.
The roundabout had been installed in the late summer of 2009, just before East Middle School opened. As I surveyed the area, I found myself trying to remember what houses, what businesses had been there 40 hours earlier. All I saw on either side was destruction, thriving businesses that no longer existed, homes that were no longer fit for habitation.
We turned east toward the school, stopping at what was left of the first house on the right hand side of the road. Ms. Sterling and I talked with Jodie and Christina Neil, who told us their story, which was featured in Ms. Sterling’s article:
Jodie Neal and his wife, Christina, had no basement in their home. They survived the fierce wind by rolling up in a green blanket, planting themselves in the hallway, and covering their two children with their bodies. Their house broke up around them. Jodie downplayed the red welts and scabs on his back, caused by flying shards of debris. “Some people died,” he said. “This is nothing.”