The big noise at the school board meeting

I am not a person who is easily spooked by "things that go bump in the night." I don't "hear things" and panic. I don't "imagine things" and hyperventilate.

However, sitting alone in McCook Junior High's cavernous cafeteria late Monday evening waiting out the school board's closed session, a quick succession of thunderous, echoing "BANG! BANG! BANG!" and "BANG!" "BANG!" made me jump right out of my chair.

Gunshots?

Five school board members, School Superintendent Dr. Don Marchant and Finance Director Rick Haney were in the conference room -- behind two closed doors. I quickly poked my head in the door, "Did you guys just hear gunshots?," half-expecting twitters and chuckles.

No one had heard the same noises, but I was not treated like they hadn't happened. In this day and age, with violence in schools so prevalent, the possibility that the noises I had heard were actually gunshots was taken seriously.

I was impressed with what happened next. Dr. Marchant turned off all the lights, locked the door to the conference room, told everyone to stay put in the conference room, and told board member Tom Bredvick to call the police.

I grabbed my camera case and joined board members waiting in the dark in the conference room, watching a McCook patrol car creep up the block from the south and three officers on foot start to walk cautiously around the school.

Dr. Marchant contacted maintenance men who were working upstairs in the junior high, asking them whether they had heard -- or had made -- any loud noises.

Bredvick kept a running conversation with the dispatcher at the public safety center, so we knew the police were checking all the doors -- one of which they found unlocked on the north side of the building.

One maintenance man said he had slammed the lids on the trash receptacles on the south side of the building as he emptied the trash. Was that my noise? No, I said, that wasn't it.

Then one of the the maintenance men recreated the noises he made as he checked the locks on a big double door at the north end of the cafeteria hallway. "BANG! BANG! BANG!" "BANG!" "BANG!"

It sounded just a little different, not quite as muffled, not quite as loud, but that was my noise.

What a relief.

Something actually very innocent, and I felt pretty silly for interrupting the board's closed session and for having to call the police.

But, Dr. Marchant, Rick Haney and board member Jim Coady assured me, "Better safe than sorry."

And, then, I did feel safe. And I felt confident that McCook school officials have the safety of our children as their paramount concern in an inconceivable day and age when people target schools to vent their frustration, anger and rage.

The McCook police department's log reads: "Monday, 10:16 p.m., 500 block of West Seventh, suspicious noise/activity reported." It could have been real ... thank God it wasn't.

What was real was that my hearing gunshots added oh, maybe 35 to 45 minutes, to a meeting for board members that didn't adjourn until 2:15 a.m., Tuesday. Sorry ...