Jetliner Blast Broke Heart Of Pa. Town -- `Here It's Like A Family; The Town Is Your Family. It's Just Unbearable'

MONTOURSVILLE, Pa. - By the hundreds, they sat elbow to elbow in the school gymnasium to remember friends who would never come home.

It was exactly 24 hours after TWA Flight 800 exploded into a fireball and plummeted into the Atlantic, tearing apart a family of 5,000.

This close-knit community five miles east of Williamsport, where everyone knows one another, has become America's saddest town. It lost 16 high-school students and five adults on the Paris-bound jet, and every family on every block is reeling in grief and shock.

In the gym lined with athletic awards, an organ played solemn hymns as grandparents, parents and children clutched each other in stunned silence. Seven clergy members, unable to find words of comfort, relied instead on psalms from their Bibles.

Nearly every young person was wearing a blue and gold ribbon to remember his or her friends. On every sidewalk lined with tidy frame houses, parents and children walked arm in arm, holding each other up.

Their town, not too different from many in America before the crash, now becomes the nation's symbol of heartbreak.

"It's like time has stopped," said BrenDena Trick, 27, a track coach who knew practically every student on the downed plane. "It's like now that they're gone, it's a part of us that's gone too.

"Here it's like a family. The town is your family," she said, standing at an open window of Montoursville Area High School. "It's just unbearable."

The dead students - kids aged 14 to 18 - were members of the school French Club. They organized bake sales and car washes so they could earn the $1,500 for the 10-day foreign adventure. They also were Montoursville's shining stars, the best in sports, schoolwork and attitude. The 13 girls and three boys included band members, soccer players, a twirler, a cheerleader. They dreamed of college and the good life.

Jody Loudenslager was one of them. All her friends knew she was afraid of flying, and she spoke often of the Everglades ValuJet crash.

On Monday, the last time she talked to Lisa Williams, a fellow varsity cheerleader who was one of her best friends, she said, "I don't want to go anymore. I'm scared to fly."

But she really wanted to see Paris. She got on the plane.

Another teen on the plane was 17-year-old Amanda Karschner, a track star who worked after school at Cellini's Sub Shop, where workers describe her as outgoing and friendly. The boy who took her to the prom, Robb Dunne, clutched a picture of them together Thursday afternoon.

He waved as Amanda and her friends left on a bus Wednesday morning for New York. Early Thursday, he was there when French Club parents boarded another bus, to identify the remains of dead children.

The students perished with the school secretary, who had worked at the high school of 800 students for more than 30 years; their energetic French teacher and her husband; a parent, and an adult friend.

As early as 2 a.m., when word first hit Montoursville that 21 of their own were aboard the jetliner, people rushed to the high school, the town's hub even in the summertime, to meet other stunned parents, friends and faculty.

Principal Daniel Chandler immediately summoned counselors. By 4 a.m., school officials had arranged for two donated buses to take parents and clergy to New York.

"All we can do is keep the door open for them and be there for them," Chandler said. "People gain strength from other people."

By 8 a.m. the school flag was at half-staff. A steady stream of flower arrangements and food followed.

Dozens of teenagers spent hours at the school as counselors tried to console them. Some left in sobs.

The grass outside the school became stomping ground for hordes of reporters, photographers and cameramen. The town had never seen such an onslaught.

Business dealings on the main drag, Broad Street, which has only two stoplights and no parking meters, were practically nonexistent. The large Bethany Lutheran Church in the middle of Broad Street held an impromptu memorial service at noon. The young and the old, dressed in everything from fancy dresses to torn shorts, sat silently in church.

The town has other fresh tragedies. Last spring, a teenage boy was killed in a car crash. Another killed himself. During the winter, an elementary schoolchild died after being hit by a bus.

Eric Greenway had been to one of the graves Thursday.

"We've seen more deaths than most people see in a lifetime," said Greenway, 17, who knew nearly every youth on the plane.

"The grieving may end someday," he said. "But there will always be the hurt. Always."

The high school's alumni streamed into the school all day.

John Hall, 23, said he cried for people he thought were on the plane, then cried with happiness when he learned of people who were not.

"This school is the cornerstone. Everyone knows people here," he said. Lisa Williams, 15, wanted to go on the Paris trip.

"But my mom wouldn't let me," she said.

"I told her she was too young," her mother said. "Now I can't believe it," Lisa sobbed as she stood on the sidewalk outside the school where a "Have a Safe Summer" sign is posted.

"I know I'll never see them again. And I just don't know how to get over that."

President Clinton, who mentioned the students in his White House comments Thursday, called Mayor John Dorin with condolences. Gov. Tom Ridge attended the evening prayer service and hugged people afterward.

Before most of the teenagers left the crowded gym, they reached out to others near them and hugged.

One was Jen Coffman, who knew three students on the plane. "I keep thinking of the people who died and their families," she said, her eyes red from tears. Sometimes, she said, she thinks this must be a blurry movie in which the heart of her hometown is broken for no clear reason.

Then she left the school and made her way toward the television cameras, her face frozen in the glare of lights, and walked away.