YATES CENTER — A bomb scare Monday evening at Yates Center High School prompted authorities to evacuate the school as well as several neighbors for several hours.
Yates Center Police Chief Michael Strode said the call was sent to the Woodson County Sheriff’s Department shortly after 5 p.m.
The caller appeared to be “a distraught individual” thought to be in his late teens or early 20s, Strode said, and who claimed to be a bullying victim.
The caller told authorities he had broken into the school and planted a bomb that would “do something bad,” Strode said.
A middle school basketball game against Crest also was interrupted because of the threat.
Yates Center police and Woodson County sheriff’s deputies did an initial search before the Kansas Highway Patrol arrived with bomb-detecting canines for a pair of searches.
Officers also checked out several vehicles in the area.
No device was found, Strode said.
Yates Center authorities cleared the school for re-entry after an extensive scope of the building, and classes resumed as normal Tuesday morning.
Strode said the Kansas Bureau of Investigation is assisting efforts to determine where the call came from.
