c. 2006 Religion News Service

NICKEL MINES, Pa. _ The one-room schoolhouse where 10 Amish girls were shot on Oct. 2 stood along White Oak Road for 30 years. It came down in less than 30 minutes.

Working in pre-dawn darkness _ a move intended at least in part to thwart media coverage _ workers and heavy equipment swept down on the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Lancaster County at 4 a.m. Thursday (Oct. 12) to remove the grim reminder of the rampage that left five of the girls and the gunman dead.

A fencing contractor _ who just 10 days earlier had been standing at a nearby intersection when the fatal shots fired by Charles Carl Roberts IV rang out _ was first on the scene. The contractor quickly removed the white picket fence that surrounded the school yard. As soon as the fence was out of the way, backhoes and bulldozers moved in, leveling the beige stucco building in about 20 minutes before loading the debris into 12 huge dump trucks to be carted off to two nearby landfills.

By the time reporters were allowed to walk down the road for a closer look, the only evidence that the school once stood there was the “No Parking” signs lining both sides of the road, and a Bobcat and some tools being used by the fencing contractor. The ground was already graded and seeded.

The parcel where the school stood since 1976 was turned into part of the pasture of a farm that sits just a few hundred yards away.

Along the road and one side of the old schoolyard, a new wire fence replaces the white wooden pickets, joining with the fences of that farm, which is owned by the family of one of the girls killed.

The five survivors remained hospitalized Friday. A neighbor of one victim who is hospitalized in Philadelphia said the girl is expected to be released soon.

A school eventually will be built at another site. For now, the 15 boys and one girl who escaped the gunman’s wrath are attending classes in a garage on a nearby farm. A makeshift memorial of flowers and stuffed animals has risen on a corner up the road from the school site, but there will be no permanent plaque or memorial where the school once stood.

Throughout the morning, a stream of vehicles, many with out-of-state license plates, passed that corner across from the Nickel Mines Auction House, which reprised its role as an impromptu media headquarters during the demolition.

Most of the drivers slowed as they moved past the intersection, craning necks in an effort to catch a glimpse of the school.

“I wanted to see it. Not for the sensationalism, but for reverence. I just wanted to say a prayer,” said Massachusetts resident Janice Llewellyn, a tourist visiting Lancaster on a long-planned vacation.

Another woman parked and walked up to a local resident, camera in hand, asking where the school was located.

“There is no school anymore,” a local woman, Shelly Castetter, who is not Amish, replied.

“Which side of the road was it on?” the gawker asked.

“I’m not telling you,” came the reply.

One reason the Amish were anxious to demolish the building was to minimize the tourists coming for a look.

“Razing the building has made it so if people want to do that, we took that away from them,” said Castetter. “Some people will still want to just see the site. In a few months, you won’t even be able to tell where it was.”

Others in the community said tearing down the school will help things start to return to normal in Nickel Mines.

“This neighborhood is so ready to get back as close to normal as possible,” said Sam Fisher, who manages the auction house. “I am sorry, but they are so sick and tired of the media.”

KRE/JL END COUROGEN

(Chris A. Courogen writes for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa.)