‘It’s Too Awful’: McAuliffe’s School in Stunned Disbelief : Students Sent Home Early, Wiping Tears

A blast of party horns and cheers turned quickly to silence and stunned disbelief as 1,200 Concord High School pupils watched the space shuttle Challenger rise into the sky and explode into pieces.

They were later sent home early.

Students filed out of the red brick school building at 1 p.m., wiping tears from their faces and bowing their heads.

“It’s awful. Just too awful even to contemplate,” Concord High Principal Charles Foley said as he fought back tears. “I hope God will be good. I hope he’ll be good to all of us.”

Television monitors carried the long-awaited launch of Christa McAuliffe to classrooms throughout the high school, where McAuliffe taught social studies and law and planned to return to teach in the fall.

About 200 pupils and teachers watching a television set in the school auditorium participated in the final 10-second countdown and cheered wildly as the shuttle’s engines blasted the craft toward space.

Continued to Blow Horns

Believing the launch to be normal, the students continued to cheer and blow their horns until someone in the balcony yelled, “Damn it! There’s a major malfunction. Shut up so we can hear.”

Only the sound of the television and NASA reports filled the room as the students and teachers sat stunned, reporters and news television cameras filming their shock.

The silence was broken by murmurs of: “This isn’t real, is it? This can’t be happening?” The students whispered to each other and to themselves.

Within minutes, school officials ordered reporters out of the building and students back to class. Some students protested the order, saying they preferred to remain in the auditorium.

“It’s not like (the teachers) are going to hand us an assignment and say, ‘Now go to work,’ ” said Allen Little, 17. “We want to know what’s happening. Don’t treat us like jerks.”

“Nobody thought this was going to happen,” said Mark Letalien, 16. “A lot of us had gotten tired of all the space shuttle and Christa hype, but no one wanted anything to go wrong.”