Rumors, opinions and concerns about the threats on Falls schools this week are on the minds and in the conversation of area residents.
The situation has been the topic of constant conversation at the Coffee Landing in downtown International Falls, according to owner Sheila Johnson.
“Many think it was all about the hockey game,” she said. Johnson added that a few people feel the threat might be a copy-cat action from a Fort Frances High School incident in 2006.
“It’s definitely screwing up a lot of people,” Johnson went on. “Some parents are talking about kids that were sent home and shouldn’t have been, and others say that kids who should’ve been sent home were not.”
Johnson said emotions range from anger to sympathy; and a lot of parents are venting: “There is the feeling that the kid either needs to be beaten severely, or the kid needs a lot of lovin’.”
Tammy Rognerud, co-manager of the Border Cuts hair salon, said there was a similar sentiment at her shop.
“We feel bad that a kid’s life would be so sad that they would feel the need to do this,” she said. “And possibly, this could be just as sad for his family. It’s going to affect their lives forever, to be connected with terrorism, in a small town.”
Rognerud also has children who attend the high school. She said she heard that things were handled well. “But there were a couple of minutes where I didn’t know where my kids were, and that made me freak out.”
Rognerud expressed having the feeling that kids were vulnerable if they were free on the streets. “I mean, you feel like any wacko could grab them and here you are, at work, and can’t get out.”
Mark Showers has a seven-year-old daughter who attends West End Elementary.
He believes most of the tension was actually created by the panic mode of some parents. “Their behavior was sometimes inconsiderate of others,” he said, “and just added problems.” Teachers were calm and effective in their direction and leadership, Showers noted. He is satisfied with the way things were handled.
Shower’s opinion is significant because he was present “within bullet range” at the April 1999 Columbine high school massacre in Colorado, one of the deadliest school attacks in U.S. history. Showers was working at a shop right outside the school. One of the 12 students who was murdered in the rampage was the stepdaughter of his personal friend.
Showers said that his daughter, and other children he saw Wednesday, didn’t appear frightened at all. In fact, he said his child returned to her classroom to retrieve her toy bunny. “I gave her a little lecture about that,” he said.
Showers’ companion, who has three children in the Fort Frances school system, told him that Fort Frances has a very “carved in stone” procedure for these events that incorporates parents in the response. “There is a parent call list,” Showers said. “We could probably learn something from the Fort Frances procedure.”

Area schools react
Superintendent Fred Seybert of the Littlefork-Big Falls school says aggressive reaction is critical in these circumstances.
“Falls schools seem on top of things and did things to the best of their ability,” he said.
Seybert said L-BF’s reaction plan involves aggressive response and he said he believes they have a very secure school.
“The state requires five modified lock downs per year, and we’ve already had three,” said Seybert. We have only two, unlocked entrance doors during the school day, and we have adjusted the monitoring of those entrances, both of which are near the office.”
Seybert said that in the event of a threat when students must be evacuated, the school has established destinations (which they do not disclose) to where they would be evacuated. “There was an incident down south where revealing that locale to the public made students vulnerable,” Seybert said.
Seybert said he also believes that if Falls students must make up lost school time due to this threat, peer pressure could help to identify the offender.
Lynn Jennissen, new principal at Indus school, expressed his school’s concern over what is happening in the Falls.
“I feel they have a good administration there,” said Jennissen. “It’s a very, very difficult situation.”
Jennissen said Indus has felt the effects of what has happened.
“We have Indus kids who attend school in the Falls, and Falls students who come to Indus,” he said. “We’ve had kids in tears over their friends there.”
Jennissen said, “There is no way of measuring the damage of a deed like this.” Likely a student, he said, this individual needs to understand the implications of what they’ve done.
The principal also believes the criminal will be found. “They will be their own undoing,” he said. “They’ll talk. And we’ve told our students to please come forward with any information they might hear.”
The Indus school is fortunate in being small enough to have direct contact with every parent in these events, according to Jennissen. He said he has the home and cell phone numbers of every student’s personal contacts. “We have a crisis management plan for just about any situation, which is reviewed and approved every year,” he said. “Of the five modified lock downs required yearly, we have done two.”
Jennissen said the school also has two assigned locations, which are not disclosed, in the event of the need to evacuate students from the school.
“We want people in the Falls to know that 35 miles way, we feel it here, too,” Jennissen said.
The St. Thomas catholic school, which was also closed, could not be reached for comment at press time.