“If a match had been struck in the building or if an electric spark had occurred, the new Ridgeway school would have been wrecked by a violent explosion from an accumulation of gas under the floors.” In August 1958, only seven years after the devasting fire that destroyed Ridgeway’s school, the town was again in danger of losing its school building. On August 9, the school received a delivery of 800 gallons of petroleum gas to be used to fuel the furnaces. Four days later, the gauge read empty, and no one knew where the gas had gone. On August 15, custodian Rodney Hogan smelled gas inside the school and called the Superintendent Erle Heckman who contacted the state director William Thad Fife of Jefferson City for assistance. “It was just like a big bomb,” Fife said about the building.
They determined that a leak had formed somewhere along the metal line running from the tanks across the road from the school and the gas had pooled under the concrete floors, being careful to make sure that no spark or flame would set off an explosion. To remove the gas, they had to open all the windows and dig holes into the concrete floors to allow the gas to escape. They also used a large air compressor to push air into the holes to “drive out more of the explosive substance. Fife then suggested replacing the gas line with a new line that would enter the building in an inverted “U” shape to prevent the gas from entering the building in the event of a leak. (St. Joseph News-Press, 21 Aug 1958)
The Ridgeway School was scheduled to open that year on September 1 and had about 200 students enrolled. Thanks to the observation of Rodney Hogan and the hard work of all involved, the Ridgeway school building remained safe and sound. This year, the school can celebrate 70 years of educating the children of Ridgeway within this building’s walls.
