Bittersweet memories.
Columbine HS
one-year
e anniversary
Celebrations
&
Remembrances
Tomorrow, April 20, marks the one-year
anniversary of the Columbine Highi
School shootings that chattered a
community and grabbed the attention
of a nation. This is a look back at the
events and stories that took place as
well as progress that has been made to
deter school violence.
State of Colorado Remembrance
Thursday, April 20, 2000
11:20 a.m. - State Capitol >
Governor Bill Owens leads statewide
remembrance of the tragedy andfor
the victims on the steps of the
Capitol. Statewide moment of silence
at 11:21 a.m.
Columbine High School Student
and Staff Assembly
Thursday, April 20, 2000
9:30 a.m. - CHS Gymnasium
Private gathering of students and
staff for remembrances and personal
reflections.
Community Remembrance
Thursday, April 20, 2000
12:30 p.m. - Clement Park
Amphitheater
A "thankyou” to the world from
Columbine students and staff.
Candlelight Vigil Service
Thursday, April 20 2000
9:30 p.m. - Clement Park
Amphitheater
A candlelight vigil service to
remember and hope.
Kip Kinkel
With the anniversary of'
the Columbine shootings,
Oregonians are reminded of
the Thurston High School
shootings. Kinkel was
sentenced to 111 years in
prison without the> possibility
of parole for four counts of
murder and 26 counts of
attempted murder. He was 15
years old at the time of the
shootings.
A Time to Hope Activities
Thursday, April 20, 2000
1:45 p.m. - Clement Park and CHS
A variety of activities - music and
recreational -for, students and
community residents. CHS events are
private and closed to the media and
public.
Parents, students
exhibit different
perceptions
A year after Columbine, parents
and teenagers hold strikingly differ
ent views on the problem of youth
violence across America.
According to a new poll by Time
and the Discovery Channel in con
junction with the National Campaign
Against Youth Violence, fewer teens
feel very safe from violence in
schools today (33%) compared to
shortly after the Columbine killings
a year ago (42% in a similar poll).
But more parents believe that teens
feel safe in school today (45%) than
felt that way last year (27%).
Nearly a third of teens say they
have witnessed a violent situation
at school, while only 8% of parents
think that’s the case.
About half of teens in the poll
say they have been insulted or
threatened in the past year, but only
22% of parents believe their kids
have experienced that type of situa
tion.
V- ?
While eight in 10 parents say they
have talked with their kids about
ways to protect themselves from
violence, only six in 10 kids remem
ber having such conversations. And
while about half of parents wish they:
could talk more with their kids about
this subject, only 18% of teens want
more such talks.
One reason may be that most par
ents encourage kids to stand up for
themselves, while most kids are wor
ried about the possible violent con
sequences. Two-thirds of parents be
lieve it is nearly impossible for teens
to walk away from an angry con
frontation without being teased, but
I only 37% of teens agree.
Both parents and teens believe
that youth violence has increased in
recent years, even though school-
related violent deaths have been in
decline.
Extensive news coverage of
school shootings may account for
this misperception.
School violence
in one year's time
April 28,1999
Taber, Alberta, Canada
1 student killed, 1 wounded at W. R.
Myers High School in first fatal high
school shooting in Canada in 20
years. The suspect, a 14-year-old
boy, had been unhappy at Myers
and dropped out in order to begin
home schooling.
,
May 20,1999
Conyers, Ga.
6 students injured at Heritage High
School by 15-year-old T. J. Solomon,
who was reportedly depressed after
breaking up with his girlfriend.
Nov. 19,1999
Deming, N.M.
1 seventh-grader, Araceli Tena,
fatally shot at Deming Middle
School by Victor Cordova Jr., age 13.
The boy, a dual citizen living in
Mexico and commuting to the
school, was struggling with
depression after the death of his
mother. His victim was apparently
targeted at random.
Dec. 6,1999
Fort Gibson, Okla.
4 students wounded and 1 severely
bruised in the chaos as a 13-year-old
boy opened fire with a 9mm
semiautomatic handgun at Fort
Gibson Middle School.
Feb.29,2000
Mt. Morris Township, Mich.
1 6-year-old girl, Kayla Rolland,
fatally wounded at Buell Elementary
School near Flint, Mich. Assailant
identified as a 6-year-old boy who
lived in a crack house. A 19-year-old
man was charged with involuntary
manslaughter for allowing the boy
easy access to the .32-caliber
handgun used in the shooting.
A Note for Rachel Scott
The following essay was written by Roger Rosenblatt and published in Time Magazine last May, 10.
It was written to one of the victims of Columbine High School—17-year old Rachel Scott.
Your friends were shown on tele
vision, writing goodbye messages on
the white casket provided for you. I
hope you will not mind if a stranger
writes a message of his own. Of
course, this is a literary device (as a
young writer, you will recognize it as
such), a way of doing an essay on the
thoughts your death evokes. But this
is also for you alone, Rachel, dead at
17, yet ineradicable because of the
photograph of your bright and witty
face, now sadly familiar to the coun
try, and because of the loving and ad
miring testimonies of your family.
Your dad said in an interview last
week that while there were many le
gal and legislative questions to be an
swered in the aftermath of the Col
umbine High School murders, these
did not touch “the deep issues of the
heart.” He was referring specifically
to the forgiveness that he, your
mother and stepfather were dredging
up for Dylan and Eric; and he may
also have been thinking about the two
boys’ deep issues of the heart, real
ized out of a terrible darkness, and
about the nightmares of your school
mates who survived—all deep issues,
reachable with great pain and diffi
culty.
But the deep issue I want to touch
upon has to do with me and my col
leagues—journalists who, for all our
recurrent, usually unattractive dis
plays of know-it-all confidence, oc
casionally come upon a story such as
yours and recognize our helplessness
before it. Most honest journalists will
admit that they never really under
stand the events they attempt to or
ganize and clarify, and that more of
ten than not it makes a “better story,”
one that comes closer to the truth, to
swim around in the mystery of things.
I, who have lived more than three
times your years, have rarely under
stood the occurrences and the people
in the world that I have pretended to
give order to. Yet I write sentences
that end in periods. An odd word, sen
tence, don’t you think? It means an
authoritative decision, a judgment (one
is sentenced in a courtroom), as well
as a definite part of the language. Y et
anybody who writes one knows that
in reality sentences roll on and come
to no conclusions; typically, they are
questions disguised as answers, even
cries for help.
So, Rachel, when I write, “This is
what I want to tell you,” please read,
“This is what I want to ask”: Where
do we, who ply our trade in this maga
zine and elsewhere, find the knowl
edge of die unknowable? How do we
learn to trust the unknowable as
news—-those deep issues of the heart?
The problem belongs both to us
and to those we hope to serve. Jour
nalists are pretty good at unearth
ing the undeep issues. Give us a
presidential scandal, even a war, and
we can do a fair j ob of explain ing the
explicable. But give us the killings
at Columbine, and in an effort to
cover the possibilities we will miss
what people are thinking in their
secret chambers—thinking, feeling—
about their own 1 oves and hatreds,
about the necessity of attentiveness
to others, about their own children:
about you, Rachel.
I have never believed that life is re
vealed in its cataclysmic moments, its
“wake-up calls,” but rather in repose,
when people go about the quieter busi
ness of being who they are. Journal
ists tend to turn to where the noise is.
One of the things your death be
queaths is a reminder to look where
the noise is not. One can tell far more
interesting things about a crowd at a
picnic than a mob in the streets, or
about someone like you when you
were writing poems and performing
in school plays, or just dreaming
without a sound, than when murder
made you a “national symbol.”
Your other bequest may be more
useful still—to journalists and every
one else. No life ends on a period, no
matter how long it is lived. But your
abbreviated life makes one especially
aware of how much there is to the
unknowable and untidy. In their pri
vate hours, y°ur parents will imag
ine you as a wife, a mother, an ac
tress in the movies or at the village
playhouse. For myself, I see you
married—as my own daughter was
married a year ago—in a church cer-
emotfy the antipode of the one you
were the center of last week.
The deeper unknowable, though,
is who you were before the guns
locked you into a sentence. The only
question that ever ought to matter to
my colleagues and our customers is
the one we do not ask except in ret
rospect, after the guns or the scan
dal: Who are we all in silence—at a
table in the cafeteria, at a table in the
library? What can journalists tell oth
ers about the mind we all share, the
innocent mind and the murderous?
That is the real news of your death.
That is the news I want to remember
next week, when Kosovo is over or
not over, and CONGRESS DE
BATES GUN CONTROL, and Al
Hirt’s trumpet is no longer heard.
I would like to have remembered it
before Tuesday, April 20, when the
news of the day supposedly brought
you to light. Rachel, you were always
in the light.