Witness

When the new Jay Schools commission on school safety convenes for the first time at 8 a.m. Tuesday, plenty of points of view will be represented.

But only one will be a witness.

“It’s just something you never forget,” rural Dunkirk’s Shirley Dollar said. “It’s something that just doesn’t go away.”

It was Feb. 2, 1960, Groundhog Day.

Shirley Harter was a fifth grader at William Reed Elementary School in Hartford City. Her teacher, Harriett Robson, was also assistant principal at the school.

Leonard Redden, 44, was the school’s principal. And he was a frequent visitor to Robson’s classroom. 

Because there was no school secretary, Redden would drop by to alert Robson, 52, when he was going to be out of the building. There was even a phone in the classroom so she could handle any incoming calls while Redden was out attending to a second elementary school.

One of the students was absent that morning, so Robson sat in his place while talking to her students.

“She was sitting in his desk, and it was right in front of the coat closet,” said Dollar.

That’s when the door opened and Redden stepped in.

He was dressed strangely, attired like a hunter.

But even that wasn’t unusual.

“He would come in — several times — in costumes,” said Dollar. “He’d come in in a clown suit or just different things. Just for fun. So when he came in in this hunting gear, we just thought it was another one of his costumes.”

But this time was different. This time he had a shotgun. 

“Hang me, will you?” said Redden as he pointed the gun.

And then he fired.

The impact hit the fifth grade teacher in the chest.

“Her glasses fell off, and one shoe fell off. And that’s what kind of memory I have,” said Dollar.

The principal left and scurried upstairs to the fourth grade classroom of Minnie McFerren, 62. 

A custodian, alerted by the first shot, threw a crowbar at Redden in an attempt to knock the gun out of his hands. 

It made no difference.

This time the blast of the shotgun hit the teacher in the face. Her classroom full of students saw their teacher murdered.

Redden fled the building, leaving behind chaos, two dead bodies and traumatized students.

“We ran home without coats,” said Dollar. 

Robson’s body blocked the door to the coat closet.

“That’s what they said, just run home. Don’t stop anywhere. Just run home. … I was really fortunate. We lived just a couple of blocks away, but there were some kids who had to run home a mile without coats.”

Shirley’s mother worked in Dunkirk at what was then Armstrong Cork, later Kerr Glass and today the glass container plant operated by Ardagh Group.

But her grandmother was home when she ran in. And when her grandmother heard the girl’s story, she did not believe it.

Redden’s body was found within 24 hours in a wooded area of Blackford County. He had committed suicide.

His wife told police he had been suffering from paranoid delusions and had actually made an appointment to see a psychiatrist.

The appointment was scheduled for 10 a.m. Feb. 2, 1960, almost the exact time he entered Robson’s room and pointed his shotgun at her chest.

Police speculated that Redden had come to believe his assistant principal and McFerren were undermining his leadership. A Korean War veteran,

Redden today could have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I’ve never dreamed about it,” said Dollar, who recently retired from Jay County Public Library and is now a substitute teacher for Jay Schools. “Not that I can remember. … But it will never go away.”

One of the toughest things to get over is that Redden was so loved by his students. Somehow that makes it harder.

“He was somebody we dearly loved. We really, really liked him,” she said. “That’s why it was hard to believe he did it.”

Last year, when the Blackford High School class of 1967 gathered for its 50th reunion, the class donated a bench as a memorial to those who died that day.

Despite some controversy and debate, the memorial is to three people: McFerren, Robson and Redden, the man who killed the teachers and then killed himself.

“I was one of them that wanted it done to all three, because it really wasn’t the real him who did it,” said Dollar. “Who in their right mind does something like that?”

It all comes back whenever a school shooting hits the headlines.

The Columbine massacre hit Dollar hard.

“I couldn’t do anything the whole day,” she recalled. “Every time I hear of one, it’s like a bad nightmare repeating itself.”

But when the Parkland, Florida, shootings occurred and Jay Schools superintendent Jeremy Gulley began to assemble a school safety commission, she felt she had something to offer.

“If I can, maybe, I can give my all,” she said. “I think maybe I can give something, if it’s not too emotional.”