RIVERTON ? High school students here donned crisp tuxedos and sparkling gowns over the weekend despite what authorities called a foiled shooting plot by their classmates.

The Riverton High School prom went on as planned Saturday, though five students suspected of planning the violent spree two days earlier remained in custody on $500,000 bond.

Students who took part in the adolescent rite of passage said they were not surprised the dance was not canceled.

“Our school is not big on canceling things,” said Daniel Koucky, a senior at Riverton High. “We haven’t had a snow day in two and a half years.”

Like many Riverton students, Koucky wasn’t sure what to believe about the alleged plot. At first, the rumors of plans for a Columbine-style shooting did not frighten him, but those feelings changed.

“I assumed it was blown way out of proportion,” he said. “Then I started to consider the actual level of the odds that it was real.”

Bethany Street, who dined with Koucky and four other couples at a Joplin, Mo., steakhouse before the prom, said she still felt unnerved by the incident, but was focusing on her glamorous night.

“I don’t think many people thought anything would really happen or that prom would be canceled,” she said.

Authorities in Riverton – a community of about 600 people in southeast Kansas, near the Oklahoma and Missouri borders – say the five teens involved in the plot planned to wear black trench coats and disable the school’s camera system before starting the attack Thursday afternoon.

Sheriff’s deputies found guns, ammunition, knives and coded messages in the bedroom of one suspect and documents about firearms and references to Armageddon in two suspects’ school lockers.

A bond hearing for the suspects – ages 16 to 18 – was set for this afternoon. Atty. Gen. Phill Kline said he would soon determine whether to file criminal charges, and if so, what those charges would be and whether to have the four juveniles tried as adults.