How The World Began

• Photo gallery

They have strong beliefs in Plainview, Kansas. And high school biology teacher Susan Pierce knows the score. A transplant from Manhattan, she arrived here with a desire to start a new life and a willingness to help out in the aftermath of a devastating tornado. Susan tries to tread carefully, but sometimes things fall out of her mouth willy nilly, like that offhand comment in her biology class about the origins of life. Folks in Plainview get up in arms about that kind of thing.