PEORIA MAGAZINE May 2023

ONE MORE THING

FIFTY YEARS AGO IN PEORIA, THE UNTHINKABLE On May 1, 1973, three gunmen busted into St. Cecilia’s Catholic Grade School and took a classroom of 5th graders hostage

BY PHIL LUCIANO

O n May 1, 1973, 10-year-old John Ardis raised his hand at St. Cecilia’s Catholic Grade School. He wasn’t trying to ask or answer a question. He was trying to save his classmates’ lives. The fifth-grader raised his hand to volunteer as a hostage for one of three gunmen who had seized the school. Minutes later, a hail of bullets would make Peoria the focus of newscasts and newspapers nationwide, a terrified country stunned at the then-unheard of scenario of gunplay at a school. “Fifty years ago, this stuff wasn’t on TV, it wasn’t in the movies, it certainly wasn’t happening in real life at the schools,” says Ardis, now 60 and living outside Chicago.

A DAY UNLIKE ANY OTHER Located in the middle of Peoria, St. Cecilia’s had 80 students in grades five through eight in the 1972-73 school year. One of the fifth-graders was John Ardis, son of then-Councilman James Ardis. Three siblings (including Jim Ardis, later the four-term mayor of Peoria) also attended the school. Because of declining enrollment, St. Cecilia’s already was slated for closure after that spring semester. But the school would not fade quietly, thanks to Melvin Burch. The 25-year-old Peorian had returned from Vietnam with a Purple Heart and an embittered attitude, friends would later say. He looked around and saw a country in need of change. He wanted to shake things up.

He made his move just after 2 p.m. on that May 1 exactly 50 years ago. He and three friends held up Brown’s Sporting Goods, just south of Downtown. They snatched two rifles and five handguns, plus boxes of ammunition. One of the robbers dashed off. Burch led the other two to St. Cecilia’s. “Suddenly, some men blasted into the classroom and started ordering us around,” John Ardis recalled. “And they were armed. We didn’t know what to think. They basically said they were taking over the school and taking us hostage.” Burch yelled that he had enough explosives to blow up the school. The gunmen forced 30 fifth-graders, including John Ardis, into a basement cafeteria. At first, students were too stunned to do anything except follow orders to lie on the floor.

106 MAY 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE