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SALT LAKE CITY — On Friday, in theaters nationwide, is the opening of a movie telling a story that unfolded in western Wyoming nearly 30 years ago. Elementary school students held hostage by a husband and wife in the tiny town of Cokeville, and they set off a bomb.
“The Cokeville Miracle” is written and directed by long-time Utah filmmaker, T.C. Christensen, who started working on the project about two years ago.
“When I heard this story, I was immediately struck with it,” Christensen said. “I thought this story has relevance for today. Now we have these events going on, almost monthly.”
It’s a remarkable story that took place May 16, 1986. It was at a time when tragedies like Sandy Hook Elementary and Columbine High School were simply unheard of. For those who were at Cokeville Elementary and survived, they truly believe it was a miracle.
It started as just another day the small elementary school when a man and his wife, David and Doris Young, started rounding up students and teachers, 154 in all, into one classroom, where they held them captive for about three hours. The Youngs had a gasoline bomb, attached to five blasting caps, and the bomb went off.
“Almost anyone that was in that room has said that they know there was divine intervention,” Christensen said. “And they all had a peace about them. Here they are with a crazy man with a bomb and guns, and they still had this feeling like, 'it's going to be OK.'”
The only person killed in the explosion was Doris Young, while David Young later shot himself. Everyone else survived. Later, some of the children described seeing angels in the classroom, who helped shield the children from the explosion.
Courtesy Remember Films LLC
“They actually didn't all tell the same thing. Some saw angels all in white, some said they were all young, some said they were older, some said they were dressed in just normal clothes,” Christensen said.
As he prepared the script, Christensen gathered information from many of the students who shared the events of that day from journals and their memories.
Kamron Wixom was a sixth-grader, and one of the hostages. He’s seen the film.
I do like it, and I think it's important that I like it because you put a lot of your own flesh and blood memories into something like this, and you want to make sure it gets told accurately.
–Kamron Wixom, Cokeville hostage
“I do like it, and I think it's important that I like it,” he said. “Because you put a lot of your own flesh and blood memories into something like this, and you want to make sure it gets told accurately.”
Wixom also appears in the film as an extra. He said seeing the film has helped the healing process for his entire family. Two of his children, Kamaya and Colter, are also extras. Both appeared in the classroom scenes, jumping out the windows or running from the building after the bomb exploded. Thirteen-year-old Kamaya knows her dad’s story well.
“It was really weird to see the character of my dad, to feel like I was in my dad's shoes in real time. To know what he went through, it was kind of hard for me," she said.
“We invited about 20 different survivors that were in Room 4 to come and be extras in the film,” Christensen said. “And of course, at first some of them said, 'gosh, do I really want to go and relive this? I’ve been trying to get away from this for 29 years.' We had a few show up the first day and a few more the next day. And they would call each other and say, 'hey, it's not that bad, and it's kind of fun to be here.' By the time we finished at the school we had 25 or 30 of them.”
“The Cokeville Miracle” opens Friday at theaters throughout Utah, and will also play in various cities in Idaho, Washington, Arizona and California.
