Synopsis

On May 9, 1986, in the small, ranching community of Cokeville,Wyoming, David and Doris Young took an elementary school hostage for several hours before detonating a bomb inside a classroom that held every teacher and student in the school. In the wake of the madness, Ron Hartley, whose children were inside the classroom, must fight his skepticism and unbelief as he hears eyewitness accounts from the students about miraculous, heavenly intervention during the crisis.

When tragedy strikes . . . what do you see?

Review

It’s hard for me to believe that this event happened nearly 30 years ago.  I had never heard of this event, but I was a freshman in college and I don’t think this would have hit my radar as I live in Texas.  It isn’t like today where events happen almost live thanks to social media and the internet.  That aside, it is truly a miracle that anyone survived this situation.

But this story is more than 150+ people surviving a hostage situation and a bomb, it is about faith.  There are plenty of naysayers that will try and rationalize the events of that day and why the bomb didn’t kill everyone.  I like to believe it was the faith of the townspeople, students and teachers and their prayers for protection and safety.  The Sheriff, Ron Hartley, had a hard time believing what he was hearing from all of the children, that they saw angels and those angels were past family members that had died that were keeping them safe from harm.  It didn’t help that he was having an internal battle when it came to his faith and it took a lot of inward soul searching to realize that maybe sometimes you just have to believe in what cannot be easily explained.

I thought the movie was well done and portrayed the incident as it happened.  It also reminds me that times are so different now compared to 30 years ago.  Maybe we were more naive or innocent at that time, but the community came together and prayed with and for each other and truly supported one another.  This is what our society should be like now.  There aren’t any big names in this film, and I don’t think there needs to be to share this story with the world.

I thought it was interesting as I was looking up this movie/event online that in 1994 it was a CBS movie called To Save the Children and Richard Thomas (who I remember from The Waltons) portrays David Young, the disgruntled former town employee seeking his revenge.  Robert Urich was also in the movie.

We give this movie 4 paws up and if you have the chance to watch it, I think you will enjoy the movie.  You can also enter to win a copy below!

Giveaway

Copy of the DVD, The Cokeville Miracle.  Open to US Residents only

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