The Fergus County High School, located at 412 6th Ave., S., in Lewistown, Montana, was built in 1919 and expanded at later dates. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
Fergus County High School | |
_-_Fergus_County,_Montana.png) | |
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| Location | 412 6th Ave., S., Lewistown, Montana |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 47°3′37″N 109°25′33″W / 47.06028°N 109.42583°W |
| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1919 |
| Architect | Multiple |
| Architectural style | Renaissance, Beaux Arts |
| MPS | Lewistown MRA |
| NRHP reference No. | 85001409[1] |
| Added to NRHP | June 27, 1985 |
It includes Renaissance Revival and Beaux Arts architecture.
Its first two units were designed by architect J.G. Link.[2]
The building is also known as Old Fergus High School.[3]
The current high school in the area is the Fergus High School.
1986 school shooting
editOn December 4, 1986, 14-year-old Kristofer Hans intended to shoot his French teacher at Fergus High School, for a failing grade. Instead, Henrietta Smith, who was substituting for LaVonne Simonfy, was shot in the face and died.[4] Hans fired several other shots as he fled, wounding vice principal John Moffatt,[5] and two students.[6] He then ran about a mile to his home, where he was arrested after the police surrounded his house. A classmate said Hans had repeatedly threatened to kill Ms. Simonfy, saying, "I'm going to blow Simonfy's head off."[7] He was charged as an adult, convicted and sentenced to 206 years in prison.[8][9] However he was paroled in 2015 and now lives in Nebraska as of February 2018.[10]
References
edit- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ Ken Sievert; Ellen Cornwall (December 15, 1983). "Montana Historical and Architectural Inventory: Fergus County High School / High School". National Park Service. Retrieved October 28, 2017. With two photos from 1983.
- ^ "Old Fergus High School".
- ^ Crews 2016, p. 5.
- ^ Jamie Rogers (April 10, 2014). "A history of violence – Can Missoula public schools truly be prepared for a school shooting?". Missoula Independent (Missoula, Montana). Archived from the original on May 7, 2016.
After Moffatt recovered from the gunshot wound and four subsequent surgeries, he became the principal at Garfield Elementary in Lewistown, a position he held until retiring in 2010. Today, he and his wife, Maggie, live in Missoula, and Moffatt occasionally substitutes for MCPS. He applauds the district's efforts to address difficult issues, and he says he's "for anything that schools do to make the environment safer for kids." But, in his mind, any district can only achieve so much as long as gun laws remain the same. He points out that homicide is now the second leading cause of death for school-age Americans, and while school shootings are "horrific tragedies," homicides on school grounds account for less than 2 percent of the lives lost. "Some people think it always happens somewhere else, others think it's going to happen anytime," he says of school shootings, "but we need to look at the big picture. There are relatively few communities in the United States that have dealt with a school shooting ... But there are very few communities that have not lost a child to gun violence."
- ^ Klein 2013, p. 153.
- ^ "School shooting kills one". The Gadsden Times, Volume 120, Number 156 (Gadsden, Alabama). December 5, 1986. p. A1.
- ^ Crews 2016, p. 8.
- ^ "Montana boy gets 206 year prison term". The Spokesman-Review, Volume 3, Number 69 (Spokane, Washington). June 4, 1988. p. A6.
- ^ "1986 Lewistown school shooter on parole in Nebraska". missoulian.com. February 20, 2018.
Bibliography
edit- Crews, Gordon A. (2016). Critical Examinations of School Violence and Disturbance in K-12 Education. Hershey, Pennsylvania: Information Science Reference. ISBN 978-1-4666-9935-9.
- Klein, Jessie (2013). The Bully Society: School Shootings and the Crisis of Bullying in America's Schools (reprint ed.). New York, New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-6371-1.