Explosion at famed Minnehaha Academy

Observations:

Minnehaha Academy (hereafter “MA”) is Minnesota’s largest evangelical Christian school, with about 830 students, and is Minnesota’s 3rd oldest evangelical Christian school, founded in 1913. During the years I attended Fourth Baptist Christian School (from 1972 - 1981), MA was the only Christian school in Minnesota larger. (Today, while MA is still the largest in the state, FBCS currently ranks about 15th in enrollment.) With both schools located in the city of Minneapolis at the time (FBCS has since moved to Plymouth, a western suburb) it wasn’t uncommon for students to transfer from one school to the other. So FBCS occasionally gained a former MA student, and vice-versa.

I grew up about 2 miles from MA. My sister & I went to FBCS; our friends two houses down from us went to MA. We also knew other kids who went to MA.

I took the ACT Test in MA’s Upper School library–which was partially destroyed in yesterday’s explosion. Over the past 40 or so years, I’ve been in the section of the building that was destroyed on several occasions.

MA holds a huge annual fundraiser known as The Arena Sale (it is held in the school’s indoor hockey arena): http://www.minnehahaacademy.net/giving/arenasale/ It’s a lot of fun to attend, and I often run into people I know there. The book section is a favorite place of mine: I have picked up some rare (yet cheap!) theology finds there over the years.

I’ve met the current president of MA, Dr. Donna Harris. She was herself slightly injured in the explosion (treated & released).

At my present church, I know some fine people who are MA graduates.

Yesterday afternoon my cell phone rang twice with people calling to ask if I’d heard the news of the explosion.