Cokeville recollects 'miracle' of 1986

COKEVILLE, Wyo. — Some places are branded by disaster, by the stories of one horrible day that no one can forget: Oklahoma City, Columbine, the Twin Towers. What sets Cokeville apart is that the story of its horrible day is about what almost happened but didn't.

The short version is that on May 16, 1986, two people held 154 children hostage in an elementary school classroom, a bomb exploded and every one of those children survived. The heart-stopping events in this remote town — so remote that in 1986 it wasn't on some highway maps — made headlines around the world.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the bombing, a group called the Cokeville Miracle Foundation has compiled a 500-page book full of reminiscences written by many of the people who lived through that day: teachers, parents, emergency workers, the child hostages who are now all grown up. The book's title, "Witness to Miracles," conveys the community's certainty that random luck had nothing to do with the town's good fortune. And just to drive home the point, the front cover includes, in letters that stretch from top to bottom, the words "In God We Trust."

Rather than dwelling on the fact that scary things can happen, that bad guys can show up even in a place as out-of-the-way and innocent as Cokeville, the grassroots Cokeville Miracle Foundation is choosing to remember the bombing as proof that their prayers were answered.

The book and a 20th anniversary remembrance program planned for Tuesday are not about dredging up past horrors, says Mayor Karla Toomer. And it's not about publicity, she says. Although at first blush the media invitations to the May 16 event might seem like a town hoping to hold on to its share of fame, Toomer says that some people would be just as happy if the media didn't even show up.

Gratitude and healing are the goals, she says. One hundred and eighty-seven people have written entries for the book, and some former residents are returning to Cokeville for the anniversary event.

There have been news accounts and anniversary stories and books and a made-for-TV movie about that day. "But the only way to tell this story is first-hand," Toomer says. "People always try to rewrite other people's words." The compilation of accounts in "Witness to Miracles" comes at the near-tragic event from 187 different angles, based on age and temperament and who was where in that room, or outside it, waiting.