RINGGOLD, Ga. – A long line of wide-eyed eighth-grade boys and girls walked from their brand-new school gym Wednesday morning into the parking lot that divides Ringgold Middle School from the high school.
As the students passed an empty lot — where their school building was supposed to be this year — and headed to the gleaming high school, they whispered anxiously.
“I heard the roof got ripped off,” a girl whispered, glancing at the field.
Led through the high school cafeteria, the students looked around nervously, watching their new upper-class schoolmates gathered in small groups.
The tornado-ravaged Ringgold middle and high schools finally reopened Wednesday after a four-month, fast-paced rebuilding effort and after a surprise delay Tuesday from a 10-inch downpour.