By Erin Pipes
DeKalb 4th Grade Teacher
Special to the Tribune
May 4, 1999. It was a regular, humid, overcast Tuesday in the small East Texas town of De Kalb. On the day before, we had heard about a tornado ripping through an area of Oklahoma City and destroying everything in its path. At that time, we had no idea that what they had experienced would resemble so greatly what we were about to experience ourselves.
I was a sophomore in high school, and I, like any other sophomore, thought nothing like a tornado would hit my town. Boy, was I wrong! I went to my classes just like any other day in that school year. The end of the year was fast approaching, and summer was only a month away. As I look back on that day, I only wish we had that one more month of school to go through.
At about 2:00 p.m., it was time for my last period class, which was athletics. I headed toward the gym, again, just like any other day. All of the organized sports were over, and we were going through various “off-season” workouts. This particular week was my favorite -- ‘volleyball week,’ so I rushed to the gym to get ready to play. I headed into the locker room to get changed into my workout clothes. The regular gossip and griping that you hear from any group of teenage girls was taking place in the locker room. I was about to head out to the court, but met my coach, Coach Motes, at the door instead. She instructed us to all go back into the locker room to “sit down” … she “needed to tell us something important.” I immediately started thinking to myself, “she’s going to make us run instead of play volleyball” … unfortunately, I was wrong.
