Jillian Whitney

The last day of school of the 2024-2025 school year, something happened at my childhood school; a man who had been a senior at our high school when I was a freshman was arrested on charges regarding acts of arson against people related to our former high school before ramming his truck into the high school doors. This was ultimately ineffective because the doors did not break. However, afterwards, he set fire to the cop car that was parked in the school parking lot before he was arrested. Thankfully, everyone was okay. The people whose homes he attempted to set on fire were able to chase him off and put out the fire. Then the school had a late start on the last day (and only seniors were scheduled to attend), so no students were present when he tried to break into the building. But it was startling to see something so extreme happen to a place I consider one of my homes, and to see that almost everyone involved was someone I personally knew. In fact, the town is so small that even the people I didn't personally know, I knew of.