Preston Ward Condra's Lockdown Story

October 2011. Early into my senior year of High School.

This was James Madison High School in San Antonio, Texas.

Senior year was a buzzling high at the school - as discussing about gloating and being as popular as you can be at the school was what everyone wanted to be top dog as you can say.

From spending as close to $300 on Graduation rings was an example of that, with who would be rich enough to spend ridiculous amounts of money on that and who wouldn't.

I was in the cafeteria at the time. It was about half-way through the lunch hour.

Our principal at the time - Natalie Hall - was outside and I believe I pipped in a question to one of my friends and I asked "Do you guys know what kind of prompt or what else they might be selling for the seniors this year?"

And I think my friend Robert Berwick said something like "Go ask Ms. Hall. She's outside and she has prompts for you to look at."

I responded "Like what else to buy that might be that expensive? Alright."

And so I did.

I walked out the front doors of the cafeteria, and I made my way outside to Ms. Hall - who was about 100 yards away from me, looking over the other side of the cafeteria.

Just as I was about to walk over to her, I heard an extremely loud helicopter spin above me in the skies.

Ms. Hall shuts a gate to where she was standing at and ran inside the cafeteria.

I followed suite and then the cafeteria lights were immediately shut off.

Panic ensued.

It was absolute total chaos as the population of the school was close to 5,000 students.

Half of the school's population from freshman to seniors, were inside the cafeteria at the time with me.

I managed to find my friends, and we had to squeeze underneath the cafeteria tables for safety.

I was hiding directly in front of the glass to the cafeteria - basically the table closest to the front door.

It wasn't protective glass either. You could see your own reflection from the inside of the cafeteria.

I had nowhere else to run to, as not a single table was unoccupied with students huddling for underneath in the other areas of the cafeteria.

The fire alarm never went off it. It was really strange.

It was just nothing but, just inaudible screaming and yelling inside the whole time.

And there was no security guard on campus as this was well before Sandy Hook, Parkland and Uvalde.

It was pitch black inside with the Texas sun emitting and reflecting off the glass as our only source of light.

I don't remember anybody being near any of the side doors of the cafeteria - neither were they being locked or protected either, so the shooter could easily come in and kill us.

And so we waited.

And we waited.

And we waited.

Not a single gunshot went off.

Was there potentially a bomb on campus?

I was fearful of my life.

We stood there in silence in the cafeteria for a good 20 minutes - when suddenly the lights to the cafeteria came back on.

There was no intercom being heard in the cafeteria either, so we were all, shaking our heads with what exactly was going on.

I never saw any weird looking suspect on campus, through the glass as I mentioned before, it wasn't protective glass at all and I could see clearly out in the front section of the parking lot - through the windows.

Suddenly, after about another 30 more minutes of sitting there, with the lights on, huddled underneath the cafeteria table, we were given the "All Clear" to exit the cafeteria and resumed the rest of the school day as usual.

I'm serious. We continued the rest of the school day, like nothing ever happened. Only in Texas.

It turns out, somebody - a later unidentified individual broke into a house - a block away from the school. He was caught right away and may or may not have posed a threat to the school as, he could've clearly walked on campus but, he didn't.

I didn't hear a vague gun shot in the distance nor, did I see any flashing Police sirens near the school after we were given the "All Clear" to resume our classes for the rest of the day. And I didn't anything see like that at all, nor did I hear anything like that, while I was hiding in there.

Very unsettling to say the least.

I believe I spent the rest of the day in science class - Mr. Roy Cloe's science class for the remainder of the day and that was it.

My senior year was 2011-2012.

Closing Note: About a year or so prior to the lockdown in 2010-2011 during my Junior year, there were ongoing rumors of a clique called "The Wolf Pack" where students witnessed, very threatening individuals wearing bushy tails and leather jackets - threatening to attack the school armed with knives. But nothing came out of it. The little clique of "The Wolf Pack" was a play on words from the movie - The Hangover - a very popular movie that came out during that time frame. I remember people quoting the movie on Facebook - "We're the best friends that anybodddddddddyyyyyyyyyy could have." and I'm not exactly sure, where or how that rumor came about as I never actually witnessed people like what I mentioned earlier, wearing, that at all on campus.

More: Back in 2014 - two years after I had graduated - Brendan Sean Tarwater had smuggled a legit AK-47 and a few other guns into a James Madison High School bathroom. Thankfully he was reprehended before the shooting took place. Why am I just now talking about this? He was sentenced to jail for 8 years. Why he didn't get a life in prison sentence for that - I don't know. He was released sometime in the Summer of 2022 and he's running around San Antonio scott free. I didn't know him. I would be a senior and he would've been a sophomore in 2012. I didn't know him. He once had a Facebook page but, it ended up getting deleted. Oh lord. I wasn't at all, surprised something like that happened at my school, as there's zero/no rival high school nearby Madison for close to 50 miles.

Closing Note: I believe the "Wolf Pack" was the little clique Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach goo goo jesus or whatever his name was, called themselves in The Hangover, right before they got drunk in Las Vegas in the movie. You couldn't miss it. It was 5 minutes into the movie. And I believe that's where that clique name - that threaten to attack my High School came from. Anyways...yeah. Thank you for reading this ladies and gentleman.