The Cokeville Miracle

by Hartt

  The audience’s applause transcended religious boundaries. The room was full of sheer joy. “The healing process is well underway if we can laugh like this,” Sherrie Cornia said to the people seated nearby.

  The next Friday, Ford Brothers Circus came to town, and Principal Excell, the Mitchells, Rocky Moore, and others raced the elephants down Main Street. “Oh, it felt good,” a teacher said. “For a time I forgot all about everything.” Delighted youngsters cheered for their favorite teacher. At the circus, it was noted that some rides were shunned because the attendants had beards. Mostly, however, it was a particularly happy time.

  “It was fun,” said one boy. “I ate everything I ever wanted!”

  A case of overindulgence? One father understood the importance of an unfettered good time. “I was happy to give them the opportunity for one night.”

  Another remarkably positive activity was provided by one of the Salt Lake City television stations, KUTV. In conjunction with Lagoon, an amusement park north of Salt Lake City, they put together a special party for all the hostages. It lasted a full summer day, and the station spent thousands of dollars to bus hostages and their families to the amusement park, providing lunch as well. The children soaked up this kind of love—translated into something they could get their hands on. The bumper cars, merry-go-rounds, hot dogs, and punch were all additional salve to the wounds received on that bizarre day in mid-May.

  Positive activities needed to be accompanied by positive mental attitudes. Some of the adults set the example by saying that they would simply wait out the day when the pain would go away. “Every good thing happens in due time,” John Teichert said. Bibles were pulled out and hostages and family members read them together. Scripture reading, uplifting sayings from literature, writing, and reading poems—any source of optimism and strength was used as a road map to healing.

  Cokeville clergymen counseled their church members to pray that they could purge their memories of hate over this ordeal. LDS bishop John Teichert pointed out how prayer had “helped from the beginning of this crisis.”

  At the hospitals, administrators and physicians, prepared for a wave of victims, found most children “highly cheerful” despite painful second and third degree burns. “By golly,” said one physician, “their attitude appears to be helping their recovery. I was amazed at how quickly all of the burns I saw healed.” Rod Jacobsen, administrator of the Bear Lake Memorial Hospital in Montpelier, said, “Everyone noticed right away” that the kids were not feeling sorry for themselves or harboring self-pity. “They just wanted to do what had to be done.”

  Nine days after the bomb exploded, Gina Taylor, who came near to losing her eye in the blast, participated in a church program where her father spoke. As she sang “I Am a Child of God,” she was able to watch the audience with both eyes. The only evidence of her injuries was a little white patch on her face where she had been burned. “Lead me, guide me, walk beside me. Help me find the way,” came the words. Perhaps they had never been felt as deeply.

  In time, doctors said that only a few victims would carry permanent scars or have long months of slow recovery from extensive burns, like Billie Jo Hutchinson would. “That in itself is something of a miracle,” said one parent, “judging from what the doctors first feared.”

  Many people did not want the unique aspects of their escape to be forgotten. Said one woman, “I think this should be remembered as a miracle of the same magnitude as the parting of the Red Sea.”

  One of the most memorable comments was made by Tina Cook: “Deep down I don’t want to ever forget how bad this was because I don’t want to ever forget how good it eventually turned out either.”

  The town itself took an action that further underscored its independence and ability to recover—it politely refused state aid. “The town is so self-sufficient,” said Audrey Cotherman, of Wyoming’s Department of Education, “that it has not needed state aid and has done very well on its own resources. Cokeville is the most remarkable community we’ve ever seen. Those people responded and organized themselves. I cannot praise the community enough.”

  In their efforts to heal themselves and their children and neighbors, the citizens had to move through one of the most difficult but important steps of recovery: forgiving themselves and others. As the town pulled tightly together, it seemed for a time that one person was virtually forgotten. She was the only person in the entire community who had lost a loved one—Bernie Petersen, Doris Young’s daughter.

  Not only had she lost her mother, but she was also afraid she had also lost her friends. At first, she was merely shocked. “My own mother doing something like that? I kept asking myself why she would endanger children’s lives that way. Could I have stopped her? I felt guilty—but I had no idea. We loved living here in Cokeville,” she explained. “My husband was born and raised here. This is his home.” Despite their love for Cokeville, the Petersens did not want to stay in a place where they were resented for their familial connection to the terrorists.

  Some people in town had to work through the animosity in their own minds. It was difficult for them to be reminded of the horror they experienced at the hands of David and Doris. Some neighbors just didn’t know what to say to the Petersens. The first to find the words were the Morfelds, parents of one of the most seriously burned children, Tina. Bernie was assured they did not blame her for what happened. More encouraged, the Petersens wrestled with their feelings. Then they decided to stay.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson said about prayer, “Prayer is a contemplation of the facts of life from the highest possible point of view” (“Transcendental Idealism,” The American Tradition in Literature [WW Norton and Co.: New York, 1956], 350). Had the prayers of all these humble children on their knees toppled the kingdom of an arrogant philosopher on his tiptoes?

  Part of the therapy for everyone included learning more details of the incident—how the hostages had won their trial by terror. With school and community psychologists offering services without cost to the parents or hostages, many took advantage of this opportunity to talk things over. It was a positive approach, meeting an obstacle and overcoming it.

  We discovered that the full impact of the crisis was not felt by many families right at first. One woman said, “I had just naively thought that things would work out. When I realized later the entire story, I couldn’t believe how nonchalant I had been.”

  Few who had been inside Room 4 wanted to talk of hating the perpetrators. They wanted to forget it. The best way to do that was to not talk much about it—for a time. Then, no one could keep it inside.

  The process of gathering information for this book brought some painful moments. One afternoon while alone, looking over photographs, Judene felt overwhelmed upon seeing them. In some newspaper pictures, the devastation of the hostage classroom was shown clearly. She recalled the heavy smell of old smoke as she visited that room following the explosion. Then there was the close-up shot of David Young’s shopping cart with little left of its twisted frame. Somehow, all the objectively gathered facts swept together in a whirlwind of emotion. She wrote in her diary, “My son! He was there in that room, only six feet away from that shopping cart. We came that close to losing him . . . to not having his loving arms and bright spirit in our lives. . . .”

  “And then the sobs came. Great heaving sobs that almost left me gagging. I felt strangely out of control, as if emotion from some other source had taken over my body. Yet through it all, I was aware that the sobs were also of deep gratitude—an overwhelming gratitude that this thing had NOT been what it could have been. Then the crying stopped more suddenly even than it had begun.”

  That same scenario could be happening in many other families . . . and the healing would continue.

  In one of the many ironies of the takeover, that which had lured David to town in the first place—its strong family ties—now began to mitigate and dissipate what he had planned. David had been defeated by the very love and unity that he believed
was Cokeville’s vulnerable point. He had manipulated that love to take control; now his victims were allowing it to come in and learning how to use it to walk free of his memory.

  An editorial in the Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, one week after the incident, contained this comment: “If a lesson emerges from this episode, it is a lesson about what can happen to individuals who start nursing a grievance, real or imagined—who convince themselves they are right and everyone else is wrong. . . . As was so graphically demonstrated by the Cokeville madness, people can poison themselves with their own ideas.”

  Life will not be taken for granted in Cokeville as casually as it was before. Its preciousness is too highly valued. There is more understanding and more compassion now. Had David Gary Young understood such emotions, he might never have done what he did.

  Among the many letters from the nation was one from a retired elementary teacher in a rural South Dakota town. Her words aptly expressed the truths learned by the children and parents of Cokeville as they moved away from their ordeal and back toward real life: “Fear is a counterfeit of faith. When we put faith to work, it will always overcome fear. Love always overcomes hate. The counterfeit of anything is never as powerful as the real thing.”

  Afterword

  Many testimonies of divine intervention were given to us as authors of this book that survivors did not want to be made public. After all, something like a spiritual manifestation comes with a feeling of what can only be described as sacred trust. Although some mentioned the word “miracle” to us as writers of this work, they did not want their names to be included. What the reader is getting here is, in some ways, the tip of an iceberg.

  It is easy to imagine the hurt some survivors felt as they were growing up when classmates at school questioned or even taunted them. For that reason, some of the conversations we have had with survivors, including close friends, may not be included herein. As even some faculty members have reiterated with us, “We hope those who receive our testimonies will respect our privacy and refrain from raining us with calls for which we may not have time to address [each one]. . . . In addition, some survivors experienced such pain in David Young’s takeover into the sanctuary of their school that day that they still do not want to talk about it. Not all were even happy to have further mention of such a painful ordeal. “

  But as survivor Lori Nate Conger was quoted saying in the Deseret News of March 19, 2015, “I firmly believe this is a story that needs to be told.”

  Katie Walker said in the same article, “Our brains didn’t process then because we were so young [age 7]. It’s taken years to sort through this. It taught us at a very young age that the Lord answers our prayers and it helped create a pretty unique bond in our town. We were not alone.”

  First grade teacher Janel Dayton admitted, “I was one of the faculty members who just wanted to forget the entire ordeal we suffered through when Mr. Young overtook the school. With time, and further thought, however, I was among many who realized that something special happened that day. . . . We were truly blessed with help from above. I join many others in thanking the Lord for looking after all of us in the school, to thwart the evil plans which obviously failed. Now, I feel that we must give our gratitude for . . . all that we can call ‘Divine Intervention.’ We would be ungrateful if we did not pay tribute to this miracle.”

  Appendix I

  Witness to Miracles

  On May 16, 2006, the community of Cokeville, Wyoming, held a “Remembrance Day.” On this special occasion, survivors and law enforcement officials gathered to share their personal accounts of what took place in Cokeville twenty years earlier. The overwhelming message of all in attendance was that they had experienced a miracle. “If you don’t believe that this was [d]ivine intervention, then you were not there that day,” said one law enforcement official. Many who shared this thought, including sheriffs deputies, highway patrolmen, town policemen, firemen, and medics were not members of any church.

  Those who want to read the many detailed personal testimonies of what survivors and law enforcement officials termed divine intervention should read the book Witness to Miracles. The conviction that God blessed them in answer to their prayers that day in the Cokeville Elementary School was shared by dozens of survivors, students and faculty, in detailed testimonies compiled in the book Witness to Miracles. The book was published by the nonprofit organization, The Cokeville Miracle Foundation, Cokeville, Wyoming, 83114.

  ***

  Several of the hostages consented to be interviewed, and their oral histories are part of a collection by Sue Castenada entitled Survivor is My Name: Voices of the Cokeville Elementary School Bombing. A compilation of these recordings can be accessed at http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/cokeville-elementary-school-bombing.

  Full recordings and transcripts of the individual interviews are available at the following site: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories. Search the list for “Cokeville survivor oral history.”

  Carol Peterson, second grade teacher: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/second-grade-teacher-carol-petersen

  Glenna Walker, mother of students: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/emt-glenna-walker-cokeville

  Jamie Buckley King, third grade student at time of bombing: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/third-grade-student-jamie-buckley-king-cokeville

  Janel Dayton, first grade teacher: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/first-grade-teacher-janel-dayton-cokeville

  Kathy Davison, Emergency Management Coordinator, dispatcher: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/emergency-management-coordinator-kathy-davison-1986-bombing-cokeville-elementary-scho

  Kevin Walker, fireman and parent: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/emergency-management-coordinator-kathy-davison-1986-bombing-cokeville-elementary-scho

  Kliss Sparks, fourth grade teacher: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/fourth-grade-teacher-kliss-sparks

  LeaKae Roberts Weston, fourth grade student at time of bombing: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/fourth-grade-student-leakae-roberts-weston

  Rachel Walker Hollibaugh, third grade student at time of bombing: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/third-grade-student-rachel-walker-hollibaugh

  Rich Haskell, certified bomb technician: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/certified-bomb-technician-rich-haskell-1986-bombing-cokeville-elementary-school

  Ron Hartley, Lead Investigator, father of four student survivors: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/lead-investigator-ron-hartley

  Tina Cook, school secretary: http://www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/secretary-tina-cook

  Appendix II

  Kamron Wixom’s Accounts

  Kamron Wixom

  Press Release

  Press release written by Kamron Wixom to help answer questions of concerned family and friends.

  The BOMB

  By Kam Wixom

  COKEVILLE (May 16, 1986)—Our sixth grade class was on a bathroom break when a lady came up to us and said, “Go in the first grade room, and we have a surprise for you.” Our teacher, Mr. Mitchell, asked what kind of surprise. She said, “You’ll find out.”

  The teachers told us the man in the room had bombs, and we thought it was an assembly, that he was an expert helping us get through a possible Libyan attack. He said he was the “most wanted man in the culture.” That was about all he said. He talked privately with some of the teachers who went up to him, and we learned he and the woman were holding us hostage until they could get $2 million for each of us. There were about 150 students gathered in this one classroom.

  The man had three pistols attached to his belt, and they had two .22 rifles and an M1 leaning against the wall by the door. They had a metal shopping cart full of batteries, and an old milk jug filled with gasoline, and we could see metal wires for the trigger, some batteries, and copper coil inside. There were four or five explosives found later elsewhere in the school.

  The sixth grade an
d some of the younger kids around us agreed we should say a prayer. We were all sitting on the floor. We folded our arms and Allyson Cornia just started saying a prayer for us. She said she wanted everybody to be safe, that we would all survive. We felt we had done our part in asking the Lord to help us. Now it was up to us to cooperate and do all we could.

  A lot of kids were crying softly. All of us were scared, but some didn’t want to show it because we knew it wouldn’t do us any good. I thought, “I just don’t want to get in trouble and have the bomb go off.” None of us ever thought about going out of the room even though we were near the door that had been propped open. We didn’t want to do anything they didn’t want us to do. We asked the teachers how long we would have to stay there. They said, “Maybe ten days, maybe just a couple more hours.”

  The teachers were trying to get our minds off it by letting us watch TV and read books, and play games like Legos. Brenda Hartley and I built a tank out of Legos, complete with guns. I said to Brenda, “Okay, men, we’re going to cross the ‘death lines’ and blow ’em up.” The “death line” was the tape on the floor that Mr. Mitchell had placed around the bomb and the man sitting on the desk next to it. He had said, “Okay, kids, we are going to play a game. This is the magic square, and if you pass it you’ll be out.” No one tried to get near the square. Brenda had laughed when I said what I did about our tank. Then we got up and went to the table near the door where some magnets were that we could play with.

  We had all been in the room together now since about one thirty. It was now a little before four. The man had called his wife to come and hold the trigger to the bomb, and he went into the bathroom, which is connected to the classroom. He had been in there about two minutes. We were all beginning to feel a little more relaxed, then BOOM! I looked up and saw the ball of fire and a cloud of black smoke. The fire stayed low, but the smoke spread quickly through the room. There were pieces of paper in flames floating around the room and falling in front of me. Everybody started yelling and running. I went out the door and ran north toward the main doors. I was the first one to go through those doors, and ran on toward Main Street saying softly to myself, “I’m alive!”