Lockney church opens facility to students, faculty of burned school

LOCKNEY—After Lockney High School burned, by 10 a.m. the next day, a plan was in place to get students back in the classroom—the Sunday school classrooms of the local churches.

“The morning after the fire we met as an administrative staff and I got the principals together. As I met with the school board the principals went to talk to the churches to see if they were willing and if there was enough space,” said, Phil Cotham, Lockney Superintendent of Schools.

“The churches’ willingness to help enabled us to have a plan in place by 10 a.m. Monday morning,” he said.

A deacons’ meeting that afternoon not only ended with an affirmation of the decision, but with them carrying some salvageable furniture down the street.

The high school’s main building was destroyed in the fire allegedly started by two female students, but some ancillary buildings survived. The middle school adjacent to the high school did not suffer fire damage, but smoke and water damage made the possibility of using it untenable as well, Cotham said.

The middle school students were placed in the First United Methodist Church, and the 190 teachers and students from the high school were moved to First Baptist Church in Lockney.

The middle school students were able to return to their school Jan. 25. The high school students will return to their property in the next couple of weeks as portable buildings are brought in to house students until a new school can be constructed.

First Baptist Church is without a pastor, but Youth Minister Chad Cook said the congregation has been united in its support of the school.

“It’s been awesome to see everybody jump in and take ownership of various things that needed to be accomplished,” he said.

“It’s been a good thing for our church. Not only have we had the opportunity to work together, but a lot of things that we had put off fixing have been repaired. When you have company coming, you want everything to be just right, and so we’ve gotten around to some of those things we had put off for a while,” Cook said.

The almost 200 people who now populate the halls during the week more than double the 70 people the church averages for Sunday school, but that doesn’t mean the church is a strange place for the students of this community of 2,000.

Wednesday night activities typically draw more than 70 children and about 50 youth.

There has been a great outpouring of help not just from the congregation and not just from the community, but from the entire surrounding area, Cook said.

“We’ve had people call and say, ‘We know you’re going to have some extra expenses with the school meeting there, and we want to help.’ And some of those people aren’t even from Lockney,” he said.

One “neighboring” community—as much as a community can be neighboring in rural West Texas—brought numerous school supplies to help replace what was lost in the fire, he said.

“In these small communities out here, when we play each other on the sporting fields, we go after each others throats. But when one of us is hurt, everyone shows up to help,” he said.

And that lesson won’t be lost on the students, Cotham said.

“We’ve seen some great blessings come out of this,” he said. “You don’t want a fire to take your school so that you can see them, but what a great lesson for our kids to go through a struggle like this and come out on the other side—when we all do the right thing and take care of one another.”