ROSSVILLE — Owners of a Rossville-based witch school say narrow minds and narrower bandwidth led to their recent decision to move the operation to Salem, Mass.

The school faced a cauldron of controversy in September 2003 when it opened its doors in Hoopeston, with many residents and religious officials expressing worry and suspicion over the new neighbor.

In 2007 the school changed locations, moving south on Illinois Route 1 to Rossville to set up a downtown storefront.

By Saturday, on the Wiccan New Year’s celebration of Halloween, the operation will disappear into thin air.

“Personally, I’m kind of sad to see them go,” said Rossville Mayor Terry Prillaman. “It means we have to find another business to fill that location.”

Prillaman said he was aware of some of the negative perceptions surrounding the school — and its practice of the nature-based Wicca religion — but said the business neither caused problems there, nor received negativity from officials.

“Any problems they ran into was not because of the city,” he said.

“We wanted to build the Salem of the Midwest,” said Ed Hubbard, one of the owners of the school, in a telephone interview from the new Massachusetts location.

“We thought we could win people over. We shouldn’t have to prove we have the right to be here,” he said. “This is not a criticism of the mayor, because he’s welcomed us from the start — but we’ve got other people blocking us. Rossville has been very cold.”

He said walk-in traffic for the store had been dismal and that phenomenal growth through the company’s Web site had become too large to depend on the rural area’s Internet service. The Web site claims to be one of the top 100,000 Web sites in the world and has grown from 50,000 members to almost 250,000. At one point, the school employed 11.

“Our (Internet) service has been down for a week at a time more than once this year,” he said of current service. “It’s become kind of impossible doing our work there. I have resources and members I have to take care of.”

Prillaman said claims of poor Internet service are true, but the issue would soon be resolved with Avenue Broadband’s installation of high-speed cable access during the next few weeks.

“When the service is down, you can’t do a whole lot,” he said. “I’ve turned the air blue more than once waiting for dial-up. It has been a problem.”

Fred Sigle, pastor of Rossville Church of Christ, said he and his congregation were happy to see the witch school and what it represents leave the community.

“Certainly, anybody is welcome to come here,” he said, “but I also believe the Bible teaches against witchcraft.”

He said he was unaware of anything suspicious or dangerous happening at the school, but, “There are some people who claim they’ve seen things.” He did not elaborate.

His church’s biggest concern has been the operation’s influence on local school-age children. He said the church wasn’t discriminating against Wicca believers, but showing Rossville is a “Christian community.”

“There were a lot of teen-agers from the area going into the store out of curiosity,” he said. “I don’t think it was a good influence.”

Sigle said he felt that prayer had much to do with the witch school leaving.

“I believe so,” he said. “We had certainly actively prayed about it, but we also pray about the drug problems and other issues facing the community as well.”

Don Lewis, a Danville native whose family is credited with founding the Correllian Wicca “tradition” in Vermilion County 130 years ago, and co-owner of the business, said he is sad to be leaving the area.

“What people didn’t realize was, witches were already living there,” he said. “When I was growing up, it was something you just didn’t talk about. It’s unfortunate that people have to be that afraid.”

He said moving in Salem, where an estimated 10 percent of the population adheres to the Wicca religion, was “a bittersweet decision.” He said the temple in Vermilion County will continue to operate despite the store moving.

“The spirit puts us where he wants us and where we need to be,” he said. “It is kind of strange to be here in Salem talking to a reporter from the Commercial-News. But we have to do this to continue teaching our people.”

Virginia Powell, a Wicca high priestess who worked at the store, said she is saddened by the loss of the local “resource” as well as the loss of her job. Powell said she’s disabled and will be hard-pressed to find alternative employment so close to home — and in a field she enjoys.

“I was already studying with the school before they came here,” she said. “I’ve done this all my life — for a long time, only my closest friends knew. There’s nothing Satanic about it; we don’t sacrifice animals or go after the kids. There’s not a whole lot I can do now.”

FYI

For more information on the witch school go to http://www.witchschool.com or http://www.correllian.com.

To review past stories about the school printed in the Commercial-News, go to http://www.commercial-news.com and type “witch school” in the search engine.