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Technology brought an Advanced Placement calculus class together at two schools in separate school districts.

But in the eyes of some Cordova High School and Oak Grove High School students, it was fate.

The two groups of students had met through cameras and big-screen televisions all year long in Jessica Shalvey’s AP calculus class at Oak Grove High. Students at Walker County’s Cordova High tap into the class via distance learning equipment.

But after tragedy struck Cordova during the deadly and devastating April 27 storms, it wasn’t just the students’ minds that were connected, but also their hearts.

“I got a text from one of the Cordova students asking for prayers, saying they really needed supplies,” said Shalvey, who immediately began texting her Oak Grove students.

By Saturday, April 30, half the students in Shalvey’s AP calculus class at Oak Grove were loading supplies in the school’s parking lot and then driving in a caravan to Cordova.

“They were hit so hard in ’98, so they knew what we were going through,” said Olivia Hyche, a senior at Cordova High School who texted Shalvey after the storm hit. “Maybe that’s why we were put in that class together.”

The Oak Grove seniors in Shalvey’s class were only kindergartners when a deadly F-5 tornado hit their community in 1998. But many still remember it like it was yesterday.

“I remember a tree fell on my house,” said Kyle Hyche, a senior at Oak Grove.

In the first days after the April 27 tornado hit, Oak Grove senior Jordan Awtry, 18, had spent time working in Jefferson County’s hard-hit Concord community.

When he got a text message from Shalvey on April 29 saying the Cordova students needed help, he loaded up his Honda with sandwiches, cold drinks and survival kits filled with soap, gloves and other essentials.

“We all met at Oak Grove High School on Saturday and went to Cordova,” he said. “Then I went straight back to Concord, loaded the car back up and went back to Cordova with Kyle.”

When the Oak Grove students arrived at Cordova High School with the supplies, students from the two classes met face-to-face for the second time in their lives. The first time, the classes had grabbed pizza together in Cordova after deciding they wanted to meet in person. That time, they had joked around and talked all night.

On Saturday, they simply embraced. Words were unnecessary.

“It was just a lot of relief to see they were OK,” Awtry said.

Memorie Thomas, 18, of Oak Grove said she just needed to see her friends in person. “Your heart just broke because everything is OK here, and their whole life is upside down,” Thomas said.

Oak Grove’s efforts didn’t end with that trip. The class held a carwash Saturday at Calvary Baptist Church, and is selling T-shirts with a red ribbon design on the front that says “Alabama Tornado Relief,” and, on the back, a quote that is the class motto of their friends at Cordova: “When the world says ‘give up,’ hope whispers, ‘try it one more time.’”

“It’s so awesome for them to do this because they only ever see us over a screen,” said Cordova’s Hyche. “I believe certain people are put in our lives for a reason.”

Join the conversation by clicking to comment or email Leech at mleech@bhamnews.com.

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