News-Leader: School reopens as tornado-ravaged Joplin heals

The Springfield News-Leader offers a report on tomorrow's first day of school for Joplin students:

Quinton Anderson's back-to-school routine won't be all that routine.

Carefully on Wednesday, the slender 17-year-old will apply dressing to a left leg that was gouged and stripped of muscle when one of the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history tore through his home and his life in May. Anderson's father and mother were killed.

For three days, their son was missing and presumed a victim, too. Anderson also suffered a broken back, a fractured skull, a shattered eye socket and scrapes so frightful that he needed treatment in a burn unit. Almost three months later, the leg, which required skin grafts, is virtually all that's left to mend.

"I was bound and determined to heal myself, I guess as quick as my body would heal," Anderson said. "I never once thought that I wouldn't be able to go back to school."