An unidentified person called into Ames High School Wednesday morning and reported that an explosive device was in the building, said Sgt. Randy Kessel of the Ames Police Department.

The school attendance office received the threatening call at about 8:51 a.m., he said, and administrators chose to evacuate soon thereafter.

“[The person] just called, made contact with [a receptionist], stated there was a bomb in the school and hung up,” Kessel said.

W. Ray Richardson, deputy superintendent of Ames Community Schools, said students left the school at about 9 a.m. and went to various locations outside the school, such as the parking lot or the prairie.

“The issue is we were getting them out of the building,” he said.

Kessel said police, the Ames Fire Department, school administrators and custodial staff conducted a room-by-room search after the building was evacuated, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

Kessel said the building was declared clear at about 10:30 a.m. and students were permitted to re-enter, although Richardson said many had gone home by then.

“We just weren’t going to hold anyone here who was afraid,” Richardson said.

However, some parents expressed concern that officials allowed students back into the building. Some parents also were upset that officials escorted students into the gymnasium after the search had been completed.

“They did end up in the gym, only after we got an all clear,” Richardson said.

It was cold outside, and officials wanted to get the students inside as soon as possible, he said.

Richardson said he felt the bomb threat made Wednesday was directly related to the April 20 shootings in Littleton, Colo.

“All these things have a direct correlation to something else happening,” he said.

This is the second bomb threat the school has received this year, and Kessel said police and school officials take all calls like Wednesday’s seriously.

“Certainly after the Colorado incident last week, you can’t not investigate these,” he said.

Janine Mickelson, whose son Spencer is a senior at Ames High, said her son came home in the middle of the day and was quite shaken up about the incident.

“We were wondering if someone in this area might try some copycat activity,” she said.

The bomb threat made earlier this year at Ames High occurred after several threats in Fort Dodge caused school to be canceled there, Richardson said. He said he believes an Ames student made that call to get out of school for the day.

“The kids here don’t normally operate that way,” he said. “It was a lark.”

Though Ames High Principal Chuck Achter warned students Wednesday morning that prank calls would not be tolerated, Richardson did not say whether he thought the threat made was simply a joke.

“We will not take anything like that as a prank call,” he said. “If we ever catch whoever it is who does it, they will be dealt with very seriously.”

Officer Bob Selby, Ames Police school resource officer, said the department has a juvenile detective leading the investigation.

“We’ve had a few [leads] that we’ve had to track down,” he said, but no details have been released as of yet.

Richardson said the punishment in a situation like this would depend on the degree of trouble the threat caused.

“If a student had gotten hurt, we would have pressed charges,” he said.

If the caller was a student, Richarson said the school district would probably expel him or her indefinitely.

Many high school students initially thought the evacuation was a drill.

“I didn’t take it too seriously because it’s actually the [second] one we’ve had this year,” said Anne Shelley, junior at Ames High. “It’s actually the first one where the whole school’s been evacuated, which probably has something to do with the Littleton stuff.”

Sophomore Brandon Crase said he originally thought the evacuation was a drill, but was scared later because he didn’t feel assured the entire building had been thoroughly combed for devices.

“We’ve had more bomb threats before, but this one seemed more realistic because of what happened last week [in Littleton],” he said.

Freshman Laura Ng said after the massacre at Columbine High School, bomb threats seem even more scary.

“I couldn’t believe somebody would think it was funny to call in a bomb threat after everything that’s happened,” she said. “Now I really don’t feel safe. I just keep on thinking, ‘What if there was a bomb?'”

Ng said before the deaths last week, a threat like Wednesday’s wouldn’t have frightened her at all.

“I would have just thought it was a prank,” she said, “but now it’s a very real possibility.”