Flashback Funny: Power Outage Sends Students Home Early!

It was April 21, 1980 when power lines were accidentally snapped during a construction project on Highway 287, plunging Mansfield High into darkness. Luckily for all of us forty years later, KXAS Channel 5 was on the scene to capture this hilarious story!

Reporter Jack Brown summed the scene up best like this: "after an hour, officials decided to suspend classes for the day. This, of course, was sad news indeed. Twelve hundred and fifty scholars who were just dying go back inside and hit the books that they had their disappointment perfectly. And in the trauma of the moment, they can be forgiven for not stopping by the crane to express their sympathy." Were you a Mansfield High student when this happened? Let us know in the comments on Facebook!

Video Credit: KXAS-TV (Television station : Fort Worth, Tex.). [News Clip: Mansfield school], video, April 21, 1980, 6:00 p.m.; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1133350/m1/?q=%22mansfield%22: accessed March 18, 2021), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.