A private school's two year tumultuous quest to expand ended on Saturday with prayers for one more miracle.

Pleasant Grove's Liahona Academy, the only private LDS-based high school in Utah, held a groundbreaking of sorts for its new school on Saturday with school officials and city leaders calling the moment both the end of an ordeal and a miracle.

The school, with 135 students, has a waiting list of those who would like to join but had outgrown its building at 801 N. 300 East in Pleasant Grove. Two years ago parents donated two acres for a new school, which enabled Academy founders Brent and Kolleen DeGraff to secure a loan for the new building and everything seemed hopeful until the city informed the DeGraff's that their donated property was within a federally required sexually oriented business zone.

Pleasant Grove Mayor Mike Daniels convinced Trophy Homes, which was developing a nearby subdivision, to trade four acres to the DeGraff's in exchange for the two acres donated to the school, and the new school seemed on track again until American Fork protested Pleasant Grove's annexation of a portion of the subdivision, and another landowner petitioned to de-annex from the city.

The new school was to have opened for classes on Aug. 30 2006, but that day came and went as the project sat in limbo without a shovel of dirt being turned.

In Oct. 2006, fed up and frustrated, the DeGraffs and a hundred parents and students from Liahona converged unannounced on City Council meetings in both Pleasant Grove and American Fork to voice an emotional protest against the delay of their new school. Parents called the delay unacceptable, demanding the cities work out an immediate agreement.

On Saturday animosity had ended.

"Miraculous is the best way to put it," said Daniels in a speech to those gathered. "I want to say it has been an ordeal for the DeGraffs and an ordeal for Trophy Homes... We are just delighted that the DeGraffs are able to find a home (for the school) here in Pleasant Grove.

"We think Liahona Academy is going to be a strong part of a trend nationwide that you are going to see in the next five years at the national and state level. I think we are going to see major changes in the way children are educated in America, and I am grateful the DeGraffs are venturing out to see what is in the best interest of the children."

Brent DeGraff called the past two years "an interesting ordeal" and called the moment on Saturday "a trout in a milk pail," noting that a lot of work had been done to make it happen.

"In the beginning I was mad at (the Pleasant Grove City Council) and said some things about them when they were not there," he said, looking at Council members with a laugh. "I have come to admire the fact that they stood up for what they believed in."

He said he was proud of the school's blend of academic and religious education, noting the school's graduates average a 28 ACT score, compared to 21.6, which he said was the average of Alpine School District graduates.

"It is a strange mix to be talking about school and religion but that is the way we work," he said. "Over 80 percent of our students go on to college where they have an average 3.5 GPA. Over 90 percent of our young men go on to serve missions (for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and almost 100 percent of those marry in the temple."

Kolleen DeGraff said the initial donation of two acres for a new school "was a miracle in its own" and thanked Trophy Homes for doubling that donation.

Standing at the site of the new school, Kevin Long, who is heading the construction project for the DeGraffs, said even now problems threaten to keep the school from opening on time this fall. The Army Corps of Engineers has ruled a large canal fronting the school property cannot be piped or covered because it contains the flow of a nearby spring. The city, school and developers have been scrambling this week to come up with a plan to pipe a ditch under a nearby road and build a new canal alongside the pipe.

The construction timetable for the school, already almost impossibly tight, has been delayed another week because of the canal issue, he said.

"We only got to this point because of divine intervention and I don't expect that to stop at this point," Long said, noting divine intervention would be necessary if the school is to open on Aug. 30 as scheduled.

The new 15,000-square-foot school will allow 200 students to enroll this fall, and another phase of construction will eventually make room for a total of 300 students and a gymnasium. The school also records class work for a homeschool video program with 1,200 subscribers.

For information on enrolling in Liahona Academy, call 785-7850 or visit www.LiahonaEducation.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B1.