The closing of Midwest School leaves the community without its heart

The wind whistles on the rooftops and dogs bark sporadically in the gray sky, but this central Wyoming oil town of 400 is mostly quiet. The school bell should ring for lunch, but the children are gone, so the bell is silent.

Gone, too, were the screams of the schoolchildren on the playground, the screeching of their bicycles on the gravel side streets, the collision of the football players from the field down the hill. The streets of modest one-story houses are muted, like the greens of the distant hills and the yellows of the endless plains that surround the city.

Sometimes it's hard to notice the absence of something, but for residents of the Midwest, the silence of the school bell is impossible to ignore. Midwest School closed indefinitely in May after gas from a nearby oil well leaked into the building. Now, about 100 of his students travel 42 miles daily to Casper for classes.

But the town lost more than the chatter of its children when the school doors were locked, residents here say. It also lost a community center and an institution that was a source of pride and unity in a time of uncertainty.

“With oil the way it is, this school is the most important thing in the community,” said 90-year-old Helen Anderson. “It's our heart.”

Anderson would know—she's lived in the Midwest for most of the past 49 years. She did not go to school herself, but her husband was a janitor there. Her four children, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild graduated from the school. Two more attend.

She misses the children who used to pass by her house on their way home from school. She misses the lights on the football field and how people from nearby towns and ranches would fill the stands to watch a late summer game.

Most of all, though, she misses seeing her two great-grandchildren, both young at school. Now they leave for Casper at 6:30 every morning and often don't get back until 8:00 p.m. This leaves little time for them to visit their great-grandmother in her little white house two doors down from the school playground.

“It's very quiet now,” he said.

When the school closed, the town lost its pool, summer gym hours and a space for community events. Some events could be moved, but nowhere else could serve as a backup venue for Movies in the Park. Without the soccer and volleyball games, evening activities are limited for those who don't wish to travel.

A community needs a place to live, a place where it can grow and bring neighbors together. Without one, it's harder to sustain, said Jennifer Bishop, who as president of Salt Creek Days organizes many of the events in town. The sense of community and support — the very things that make the Midwest special — was somewhat dampened when the school closed, she said.

“The school is why I live here,” Bishop said. “We all raise our children together.”

Children are used to grades eight or 10. Parents are used to taking their children to school and leaving them under the watchful eye of a familiar teacher. If no one is home when the kids get out of school, parents know their child will be welcomed to an afternoon snack at a neighbor's house.

And if for some reason the school were to close permanently?

“Then we'll get out of here,” Bishop said. “Maybe it's time to go.”

The school is the latest loss for an oil town enduring another low point in the boom-and-bust cycle it has endured since the first oil was mined here in the late 18th century. The price of its most important product – arguably its only product – has plummeted over the past two years. Edgerton Cafe, one of the few businesses in town, closed in January. A rig worker died from a fall. Other workers left the city.

And then the Midwest was forced to send its children to another city.

The city has been through a lot. But a long-term school closure could prove fatal, Mayor Guy Chapman said.

“It's downtown,” he said. “You're not going to have a town without a school.”

Federal air quality tests completed two days after the evacuation found benzene levels at 200 times the amount considered safe along with high amounts of carbon dioxide,

by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Benzene is a carcinogen that can cause dizziness, headaches, confusion and in the long term create a higher risk of cancer, according to a letter from the local health department. Air tests were carried out at the school in June after a leaking oil well was repaired

. Some residents say living in an oil town means accepting the potential dangers of the wells that surround them — it's a fact of life in the Midwest. The city, after all, got its name from the oil company that built it. The school's sports teams call themselves the Oilers. “You have to understand that we live in an oil field. It is what it is,” said Michele Butler, who has lived less than a block from the school her two children attended for 13 years. “When we don't have any more birds, that's when I'll know there's a problem.” Although some residents

, others like Sue Green have never faced such problems. Her three children all attend Midwest School, and the family has lived a block away from the building for three years.

“I'm 100 percent fine with kids going back to school,” Green said. “I have a well in my yard. We know what that means and we choose to live here.”

Now that the leak is fixed and the air is safe, Green just wants her school and her kids back. He hoped the students would be able to return to Midwest School for the spring semester.

But more needs to be done before the school's doors can reopen.

First, the Natrona County School District must select an environmental consultant to work with the health department and federal agencies to review the oil company's mitigation plans. The company will then test the air in and around the school and use the results to install permanent air monitoring equipment as well as develop a backup monitoring system. Finally, the company will work with local health officials to create an evacuation plan and a long-term health and safety plan for the building.

School district spokeswoman Kelly Eastes said reopening the school before the spring semester is “the ultimate goal,” but it's hard to know how feasible that would be.

Mayor Chapman remains optimistic that the school will reopen, and soon.

“We're going to bring the school back one way or another,” he said. “This town has been through a lot and we've paid our dues to Natrona County by getting the oil out of the ground and bringing in the taxes. We deserve to get our school back.”

For now, however, many of the classrooms remain empty, stripped of the posters and crafts that marked it as a place of learning.

Other rooms look like the kids just left. Tiny chairs circle uneven miniature tables, littered with stickers. A poster encourages students to “be the best first graders ever!” A stuffed sloth sits on a windowsill next to a box of toys.

But what remains – perhaps left in the hope of a quick return – is covered in a thin layer of dust.

It's 15:15 and the school bell has to ring again.

Students should put their last notebook in their backpacks. Their sneakers should be squeaking in the hallways as they discuss what to do with the rest of the day.

The school doors must slam behind them as they walk the few blocks home.

Instead, there is only the wind.