One Year: 1986 | 6. The Miracle of Cokeville

Slow Burn

Slate Podcasts

News, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Politics

4.6 • 25.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2022

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On May 16, 1986, a man with a bomb held an entire elementary school hostage in the tiny town of Cokeville, Wyoming. Yet instead of becoming victims of unimaginable tragedy, all of the hostages in this predominantly Mormon community survived. But how? This week, Evan Chung explores what—or who—saved the children of Cokeville. One Year is produced by Evan Chung, Sophie Summergrad, Sam Kim, Madeline Ducharme, and Josh Levin. Derek John is Sr. Supervising Producer of Narrative Podcasts and Merritt Jacob is Sr. Technical Director. Slate Plus members get to hear more about the making of One Year. Get access to extra episodes, listen to the show without any ads, and support One Year by signing up for Slate Plus for just $15 for your first three months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, this is Josh Levine, the host of one year.
0:03.0	We've got two more episodes left in our season on 1986.
0:08.0	This week, we're turning things back over to Senior Producer Evan Chung.
0:12.0	One note before we get started. over to Senior Producer Evan Chung.
0:12.8	One note before we get started.
0:14.8	This episode contains descriptions of school violence
0:17.9	that may be disturbing.
0:20.4	The morning of May 16, 1986, Cynthia Triplett was on the road to a job interview.
0:26.0	It was for a teaching position at a grade school in Afton, Wyoming,
0:30.0	600 miles from home.
0:32.0	It was a long drive. I was tired. So I interviewed in Afton and when the interview was over,
0:40.4	the superintendent said we need you to go down to Coakville. There's possibly another
0:46.4	opening there. They said, you know, go down this road and you can't miss it.
0:50.8	Like, okay, well, go to a different school.
0:53.6	Cokville was a small town another hour away.
0:56.8	She got there sometime after one o'clock in the afternoon.
1:00.0	And I pulled into the parking lot and I pulled up close to a van, a white van.
1:08.0	And there was a guy and a gal and they were wearing flannel shirts.
1:12.6	And so I just assumed it was the janitors
1:15.2	because they were unloading something out of the van.
1:19.0	And so I got out of my car and went into the building.
1:24.0	She walked up to the reception desk where the school secretary was sitting.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.