New York Times: Joplin defies odds by opening school on time

Today's New York Times headlines the successful return to school in Joplin yesterday:

Exchanging the usual first-day greetings — the boys slapping hands, the girls embracing — juniors and seniors shared their schedules and marveled at the modern touches of the new Joplin High School, built in just 55 days out of what was a vacant department store at the back of a shopping mall.

Even for students like Ariana Dudley, a senior who watched her home collapse around her and is now living in a trailer, there was less talk of tragedy than of the flat-screen televisions on the school walls and the new laptops each student received, reminders of the money and other donations that poured into Joplin after the tornado.

“We’re trying to get the school year started without thinking about all the bad stuff,” she said.

The school year arrives as the city continues to regain its footing after the tornado killed 160 people, the most in the United States in more than a half-century, and destroyed thousands of homes as it tore across a third of Joplin on May 22.