This is a yearbook story I wrote at the beginning of the year 2018. Our school went to its first real lockdown incredibly early in the year. The lockdown was a big scare for the students especially because most had heard or been at a football game the week before with a gun scare. I wanted to write about how these events impacted the student body but also how the school handled the situation. 

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On August 29, in seventh period an announcement was made that the school was going into an immediate lockdown. Neither the students nor the teachers knew if that was a drill or not.

  Mackenzie Rash, 12, was a library aide when the lockdown was called over the intercom. Rash ducked and hid in the libraries conference room.

   “I thought I was going to get shot, because I thought it was real at first,” Rash said. “We moved rooms and Mrs. Smith [JAG teacher] was in there.  We locked all the doors and ducked down. Mrs. Smith said that she would take the bullet first.”

  The preceding week, the Salt Bowl rivalry game between Benton and Bryant had a gun scare causing nearly thirty-five thousand people to flee the stands at War Memorial Stadium. Several Sheridan students where there which heightened the tensions during the lockdown.

  “The Salt Bowl was extremely scary because we had no idea what was going on,” Macie Carter, 11, said. “Everyone was screaming ‘shooter,’ ‘get down,’ and ‘run’. You either went with the crowd or you get trampled … Then we come to school and we have this lockdown. The lady came over the intercom all spooked and so we got in a closet and I had a panic attack because I thought is was the Salt Bowl 2.0 ; I started crying.”

   Shelby Beard, 12, was sitting inside of the student lounge with other students who got back from their College of the Ouachitas classes in Malvern a few minutes before. Beard and other students couldn’t get into a classroom to hide because COTO students didn’t have a classroom.

  “Colonel [Clark] Easter ran through the hallway with [what looked like] a bulletproof vest…  we had to beat on the doors to get inside a room. We had to say our names to get in the room. We were beating on the door and no one would answer. So we were like, ‘We are students,’ and people started shouting their names and finally someone opened the door up.”

  Easter would not comment for this story.  

    Classrooms followed the lockdown procedures and removed the magnet strip from the inside of the doors and locking them. When some teachers complained about not being able to lock the doors from the inside, a temporary solution was made to put a  magnetic strip in the door frame so the door wouldn’t latch until needed in an emergency.

  “We were told several years ago that new locks where forthcoming that we were in the process of getting new locks…” Linda Lewis, English teacher, said. “Now locks can not be that expensive to replace on doors when it comes to the safety of our children and us i don’t think you can put a price tag on that.” Lewis, said.