A unique circumstance happened at the Greene County High School Monday when classes were cancelled for the day, after originally calling for a delayed start.

Greene County School District Superintendent Brett Abbotts says a lightning strike to a light pole in the north parking lot happened during Sunday’s storm. He points out the lightning strike caused a power surge to the west side of the high school, including the Career Academy, the kitchen and commons area. 

Abbotts talks about having a company come out for an assessment and handling getting power restored to that area, but before that happened at 9:15am, classes were originally slated to start two hours late. However, Abbotts notes that it was too big of an area to play the wait and see scenario. 

“When they were completely and totally without power, you know, that became a big concern for us, especially with the kitchen being able to serve and you know, feed kids, and while we don’t have Career Academy classes anymore, those are over, we still have classes that take place in the Career Academy, and of course the commons being just a very large open space where kids congregate. And then we were really unsure how fast we’d be able to get the power back on.” 

He appreciates the coordination between High School Principal Karen Shannon, Buildings and Grounds Director Shawn DeMoss and the high school teachers for their efforts and everyone being on the same page to cancel classes for Monday. Abbotts adds that classes will resume tomorrow.