Mallory Haulman, 17, sustained injuries to her neck when the suspect reportedly walked up behind her and her sister, and attacked with a straight-edged weapon.
Mallory is the daughter of Daily Press Production Manager Denny Haulman and Alicia Haulman, an ICU nurse.
  
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The suspect is in custody; however, little information was being released about him other than the fact he is not an MHS student and had reportedly been recommended for expulsion in the district.
School officials and law enforcement said Mallory was assaulted at around 8 a.m. with a straight-edged weapon in the main hallway before the morning class bell rang.
Several students witnessed the attack,which left the girl seriously injured and prompted an immediate lock down. School has since been dismissed for the day.
Mallory has since come out of surgery and was recovering in ICU, Woody said.
Montrose Police Chief Tom Chinn said the boy ran from the scene, but was spotted almost immediately by a patrol officer, who gave chase, cornering him at Townsend and South Third Street.
"As soon as he saw the police car, he was running," Chinn said. "By the time I arrived, he was proned out on the ground" and cuffed.
Chinn said investigators are still trying to determine a motive. It wasn't known whether the two young people knew one another.
After the suspect was in custody, students were escorted by staff to buses or the parking lot to await rides home. At least one girl was in tears and was consoled by her friends.
A few parents clustered around the school administration's conference room later in the morning. One, Janet Elder, said she learned of the lock down when dropping off one of her children.
"Both of my kids texted me. One said 'There's a stabbing.' One said 'school's out,'" Elder said.
At a press conference a few minutes later, police declined to specify the type of weapon used, or to release the age of the suspect.
"We believe it was a straight-edged weapon of some kind," Chinn said.
Superintendent George Voorhis said that though the suspect was not enrolled at MHS, he'd been in other placements, including alternative school and in Grand Junction.
"Our main goal is to get the girl to safety and take care of our students," he said.
The school is reviewing its surveillance video, he said.
"The kid came in off the street. ... Now we want to go back and ask, 'Could we have been more proactive.' We don't think we can," Voorhis said.
"We don't know why the kid did what he (allegedly) did."
Voorhis said there was a recommendation that the boy "not be in school," but he couldn't say what other schools might have done.
Woody said Mallory was involved in MHS softball and other school activities. She also assists in landscaping work at the Daily Press. "She's just a good kid; about a good a kid as I've ever come across," Woody said. "(She's) polite, a good student, conscientious."
Charges have yet to be filed, Chinn said. It's possible the boy could face the third-degree felony of first-degree assault.
Classes will resume as scheduled tomorrow; however, a Veterans Day assembly slated for 1 p.m. has been cancelled.
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