JULY 13, 2011 BY ROCKY KISTNER
School superintendent Darin Headrick remembers the day the massive 200-mile-an-hour tornado struck his small Kansas community four years ago. His school—along with 95 percent of the town—was blown into a Hiroshima-like pile of rubble by the monster twister. Fortunately, the school wasn’t in session at the time, although 11 people lost their lives in the small town. But he wondered what kind of future lay ahead for his students?
It didn’t take long to come up with an answer. Thanks to smart community thinking and a rapid response from government and corporate leaders, Darin and other town officials came up with a revolutionary rebuilding plan based on a key concept: sustainability. Darin took a trip to other communities and worked closely with the National Renewable Energy Lab to create something that had never been created: a school built with state-of-the-art energy-efficient technology that incorporated the openness and welcoming spirit of the prairie.
Darin says it was essential to build a school that would attract students and families from other areas as well. That, they believed, was crucial to the town’s survival. “Most of the small towns around here are dying,” Darin says. “We knew that if we built the school back in the same way, it would just increase the chances we would end up like all the others.” the same way. We didn’t just want to survive, we wanted to thrive.”
