Pateros still recovering following summer firestorm

Shining across the Pateros High School football field, the Friday night lights sparkled with a little different meaning on Sept. 5. After a summer that saw the near destruction of the entire Pateros community to flames, the first home high school football game brought a sense of appreciated normalcy.

“It’s been really great to get back to a regular routine and a support system,” Pateros junior Lauren Gelstine said.

They may not have had a scoreboard, but this did not stop the Billygoats from winning 50-26 over Selkirk. And just as Wenatchee High School walked on in smoke filled halls during the wildfires of fall 2012, the teachers and students of the Pateros School District strive to move forward.

“The outlook is very positive [at school],” Pateros Principal Mike Hull said.

Students returned to class on Sept. 10, only five days behind normal schedule, Hull said. Prior to their return, the building, which houses grades K through 12, underwent about three weeks of reconstruction that included new ceiling tiles, carpet, and paint.

“My initial thought was, ‘Are we going to start school at all?’ “ Hull said. “Initially, I heard that the school burned down.”

On the contrary, the building offered relief for three weeks in response to the fires that began in July. Serving as the center of the community, the school has seen members come together to provide relief.

“I think [this disaster] put students in the position to bring about resilient, leadership side in them,” Pateros counselor Omar Montejano said.

He said students came to the school during the recovery to help collect and distribute donations. This included giving all nearly 300 students backpacks stuffed with supplies.

“When this kind of thing happens, it is just human nature to help out,” Hull said.

The WHS Apple-Ette team felt that urge. Coach Lynsey Loudon said that for two Saturdays in August, the team washed window shields at Safeway for donations, giving about $700 to the Red Cross’s fund for the Pateros victims.

“It felt rewarding,” team member junior Maria Navarro said. “If that ever happened to us, we would want someone to do the same thing.”

That feeling of being all in it together is present between the Pateros and Brewster school districts. In spite of facing effects of the fires themselves, Brewster is offering Pateros’s High School Volleyball Team a gym to practice in while theirs undergoes reconstruction.

“We are not just Pateros kids. We are not just Brewster kids,” Brewster High School Principal Linda Dezellem said.

Though Brewster did not face a late start or the same amount of damage from the fires as Pateros, Dezellem said starting school was a much needed return to routine, and that staff is staying “attuned” to the needs of students’ and their families.

In the same manner, Montejano said Pateros expanded their counselor team to offer support for all students, especially the “significant amount” that lost their homes from the fires.

“We are doing post checks of those kids who lost their homes,” Montejano said. “We are keeping are open eyes and ears for issues.”

Yet, he said only time will tell how this natural disaster fully affected the students.

“It’s been definitely different than any other school year,” Dezellem said. “I don’t think anyone who has lived up here can be the same.”