Print edition: 
GREENSBURG — It looked and sounded like a homecoming pep rally in Greensburg on Wednesday, with more than 100 people crowded together, beaming as the high school pep band played at full throttle.
In a sense, it was Homecoming Day: A grocery store has returned to Greensburg.
A new Dillons -- the south-central Kansas town's largest retailer -- opened Wednesday, about 21 months after a tornado wiped out 95 percent of the town, killing 11 people.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius returned to the Kiowa County seat, more than 100 miles west of Wichita, for the opening.
She brought along new Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who wanted a look at Greensburg's recovery efforts.
"You are an example for all of us," Napolitano told the crowd, standing at a makeshift lectern set up next to shelves packed with potatoes, tomatoes and onions.
Napolitano and Sebelius also walked along Main Street, visited the Big Well and looked at the site where the town's new school will be built.
"You are being watched around the country and around the world," for how a town should rebuild after a massive disaster, Sebelius said.
Even as officials ceremoniously snipped a gold ribbon with oversize scissors, residents were shopping inside the new store, which boasts three distinct components: a convenience store, deli and grocery store. It is three times the size of the convenience store that opened early in the town's recovery efforts.
Residents said the store was more than a place to get groceries and gasoline. Perched next to U.S. 54, it's a sign that their town is a survivor.
"Words cannot describe this," local resident Carolyn Irvin said, struggling with her emotions as she spoke. "We have something back that we had before."
Irvin, who works at Kiowa County Memorial Hospital, attended the opening ceremony in her work uniform.
Much like the small limbs sprouting from tornado-ravaged trees around town, signs of recovery are blossoming around Greensburg.
The First Baptist Church across U.S. 54 from the Dillons has stained glass windows in place, the World's Largest Hand-Dug Well is open for visitors again, and there's an entire block of new homes on Morton Street south of downtown.
Greensburg's survival hinged on being able to have a hospital, a grocery store and a school, local officials told Sebelius in the days following the tornado.
One by one, those cornerstones are being laid:
Construction on a new, 15-bed hospital began last fall; the grocery store has reopened; and crews on Tuesday began tearing up the track around the football field, where the new 130,000-square-foot school will be built.
Hospital officials hope to move into their new home in December. School administrators hope to start the 2010-11 school year in their new building, which will have one wing for high school students and another for elementary and junior high students.
"This is not about us," Mayor Bob Dixson said. "This is about the legacy we are going to leave for our future generations."
