Mike Stimac, junior high school principal at Karns City, delivers personal belongings to students during a curbside pickup on Tuesday.

It was strange for Karns City High School senior Anthony Kamenski to be back at the junior-senior high school Tuesday morning.

He couldn't go inside. Instead he waited in the parking lot, a mere long pass away from the football field where he wore purple and gold and starred as the Gremlins' quarterback for three years.

It had been more than two months since he walked out of the school March 13 — Friday the 13th — for what turned out to be the last time as the coronavirus pandemic abruptly canceled in-person classes.

So abruptly, in fact, students all through the district had personal items and school projects that were abandoned.

Anthony was back to retrieve his stuff — a pair of hoodies and several folders — as part of the district's monumental initiative to clean out lockers and desks and get those possessions back where they belonged.

With the students.

“It was weird,” Anthony said. “It was kind of my 'last day' as being part of the school.”

It took administrators in the district weeks to sift through the lockers and desks, organize belonging and label them for the pickup, which began at 8 a.m. Monday and will run the rest of the week.

“It took a lot of organization and a team effort,” said Brenda Knoll, Karns City High School principal.

Just about everyone took part in the project. Even Knoll was organizing belongings and sorting them to make sure the pickup was as smooth as possible.

“There were a lot of items,” Knoll said. “We had to sort them into name, grade and homeroom.

“Some left very few things behind. Some had half their wardrobe in their lockers,” Knoll added, chuckling.

The same task was being carried out at the two elementary schools in the district in Chicora and Sugarcreek.

Tracy Dailey had to drive to two schools to retrieve things her three children had left behind.

Dailey's eldest daughter, Emma, is a freshman at the high school. Her middle child, Hannah, is a sixth-grader at Sugarcreek, and her youngest, Jaxson, is a second-grader, also at Sugarcreek.

Dailey said she was amazed at how smoothly things went at both schools.

“We had no wait at all,” Dailey said. “It was definitely a very good experience.”

Knoll attributes that to the painstaking organization.

The district instructed parents and students to place a sign visible in their windows with the name, class and homeroom of the student who was picking up their belongings.

Staff in the parking lot radioed inside to have another staff member retrieve the proper box and bring it out — all while observing social distancing.“It's curbside pickup — just like takeout,” Knoll said, laughing.The district split up the pickup days based on the alphabet with students whose last names begin with A through I scheduled Monday from 8 a.m. until noon, J through R on Tuesday during the same time frame, and S through Z on Wednesday.Thursday and Friday are “make-up days,” Knoll said. Times are again from 8 a.m. until noon.All three of Dailey's children were with her in the car on their excursions throughout the district. Dailey said Emma also found it strange to be back at the high school after all that time away.“Emma had a few notebooks,” Dailey said. “She brought a lot of stuff home on the last day. They told everyone to take home as much as they could carry.”Emma, though, came home Monday morning with more than she bargained for — one of the few hiccups in the Karns City undertaking.“She brought home an extra pair of shoes,” Dailey said, laughing. “They weren't hers.”Anthony was also pleased with the experience.He just wishes it didn't have to be this way.“My last school day was just like any other day at school until we got the announcement over the loud speaker (that school was canceled indefinitely),” Anthony said. “Everyone thought it was kind of a joke, but it turns out that it wasn't a joking matter.“They had my stuff ready to go (Tuesday),” Anthony added. “Mrs. Knoll and (junior high principal Michael Stimac) and all the other helpers were very efficient and very prepared. I'd say it was even quicker than McDonald's.”

Robby Rumbaugh, an 11th-grader at Karns City, and his sister Emma, a 10th-grader, retrieve their belongings curbside Tuesday. Students have had assigned times this week to get their things they left when school was canceled.