FIRE

I know most of you have heard about our loss here in Lockney Sunday night. Our High School burned to the ground. Most of ya'll also know that I am a volunteer fireman here in Lockney. We first got the call of a fire at the high school just after 11:00 pm Sunday night. We always get calls to fires at the hospital or nursing home here, most of the time, to find out it's a false alarm. This was not the case on Sunday night. When I walked out of the house, you could smell and see the smoke bellowing from that direction. Our high school and jr. high is connected so it was twice as scary. When we arrived on scene, we couldn't believe what was before our eyes. The second floor was pretty much engulfed in flames. Also when we arrived, there were several folks beginning to get all the keepsake stuff from the first floor. All the pictures, trophies, etc., were saved. We began our interior approach quickly, sending a team to the second floor to find things pretty much uncontrollable. We immediately began to save what we could. The Floydada Fire Department came over to assist. My friends from Floydada that were on the first truck leaving Floydada could see the flames from the city limits of Floydada. When they arrived, they did an awesome job keeping the fire from continuing down the hall into the jr. high. Only some minor smoke damage and water damage occurred in the jr. high. The High School Library was also spared of any fire damage but did receive some smoke and water damage. The science lab was also saved for the most part sustaining some fire damage and lots of smoke and water damage. The rest of the building was a total loss.

Unfortunately, we have learned that the fire was a product of arson. I will let you read or hear about that in the news.

The building was erected 1929. This years graduates would have been the 80th class to graduate from the building. Lots of history went up in the building.

I attended elementary school here before moving to Quanah. So there wasn't a lot of sentimental memories for me. At one point on Monday morning, we (the firefighters) were sitting in the new gymnasium that sits to the south of the high school across the street. While our chief was being interviewed by the Plainview newspaper, the reporter asked the question "how many of ya'll graduated from high school here?". As I looked around the room, out of around 18 fireman sitting there, there were only 3 of us that didn't attend school in the building.

I don't really know what's in store for our community for the days and weeks to come. I know that God is good! And I know something good will come of this!

Pray for us!