Seven months ago, EAST students from Wynne High School were celebrating after winning the award for “Signature Booth Design” at EAST Conference. 

“I just blacked out from shock whenever they announced our program as the winner,”  WHS EAST conference team member Middy Nelson says.

Every member of that conference team stood proudly after seeing their hard work pay off. Little did these students know, they would need the confidence from their win to cheer them up 16 days later. On March 31, 2023, a tornado destroyed the small town of Wynne, Arkansas, leaving almost nothing left of their high school. The next day, Middy and her classmate Colton Miller came to the school to salvage all they could out of the EAST room. Middy said she feared what they may have lost but was relieved whenever they got most of their stuff out. A few days later, more of the EAST students were able to help many other students finish cleaning out what was left of the school, including the EAST room.

After a few weeks and countless hours of planning by the district, students convened on a local community college campus, but due to the limited amount of space, students only attended their core subject classes.  That meant no electives, no EAST.  All projects were stopped until students returned to school for the 2023-24 school year. Although the EAST environment suffered very little loss of technology, March’s storm destroyed something more valuable.  The EAST student connection was severed. 

Students at Wynne High School started the new school year on a hybrid calendar in the last week of July, and students were unsure what the beginning of school would look like.  Time is an enemy with so many factors in play.  Split between two make-shift sites, not being together for the first part of the school year was challenging.   When students returned, many electives, EAST included, were not the same.  Some students were without a classroom space for EAST. However, EAST found a way.  

Beyond the issues with scheduling, without an EAST environment to call their own, EAST emerged.  One student who immediately started working on her project again was Middy. Middy’s project, the Yellowjacket community garden, had minimal damage in the tornado, but some repairs were needed before she could continue working.. Her group started working on fixing damages and taking the next steps in their project. 

Wynne High School’s EAST program had many new students join the class this year. All of these students needed to be taught how to grow into an EAST environment, so returning EAST students helped get all of them started. The EAST program did not have a typical classroom until the week following Labor Day when all of WHS was moved to its temporary campus.  All EAST students could finally be together and start projects. This new environment has the students thriving in and out of the classroom. Everyone in this program has learned and grown since the beginning of the school year. The EAST program at Wynne High School has bright things ahead of them, and they plan to use their struggles to improve and be better.