Local Aftershocks

The teachers, administrators, students and parents at Sacajawea Middle School are exhausted and angry. Bomb threats, devices found, small explosions, evacuations. It’s terrible.

Sacajawea is like a person hounded by bad-luck events, one right after the other. It’s never easy to know how to support someone going through a hard time. But seemingly small gestures do help.

The school’s track teams know this. Members of the boys and girls teams arrived at competition Wednesday, sans equipment, because of a bomb threat. But team members, some using borrowed shoes, competed anyway, and the eighth-grade boys team won.

The young people from Sacajawea showed that sometimes the best defense against fear in a crisis is forging on with “normal” life. And the team members from other schools who loaned equipment truly put some compassion into action.