If I recall correctly, there were probably 20 of us. I think the school population was 200 or 300.

These guys went home and called their brothers from Kansas City (Missouri). Their brothers got in contact with us and several other blacks in Missouri, and they said, 'You guys run like you normally do down this certain street, and we're going to be waiting and put a stop to all this.

It just wasn't cost effective for us to run school when half the population wasn't teaching and so many students were missing.

Part of the rationale for that is not that we're growing in population, but that we have one school [North Elementary] that we haven't made any major renovations to in years. We have 12 trailers sitting at that school. It's just not an efficient facility.

It made me work that much harder, or let me know I would have to work that much harder in an integrated society. After that, it wasn't strange for me to be the only black in the computer department.

It was the first time I saw somebody get knocked out, and his legs were just shaking. I was afraid he'd killed him.