Spring Break
Columbine: Reminders linger 5 years later
Paul Nussbaum | KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Issue date: 4/21/04 Section: News
- Page 1 of 2 next >
LITTLETON‚ Colo. - The prom was Saturday night‚ followed by an all-night party at the high school for students and parents. Student actors are rehearsing "The Tempest." Seniors are getting ready for graduation. And school was closed Tuesday for a memorial service.
Five years after the Columbine High School massacre‚ the reassuring routines of the present and the horrific memories of the past are inextricably entwined.
Time has eroded many overt reminders of the day two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 23 others before killing themselves. All the students who were there on April 20‚ 1999‚ have graduated. About 70 percent of the teachers are gone. The cafeteria has been remodeled and the library replaced.
But reminders remain. The 13 names engraved on a floor-to-ceiling stone panel at the entrance to the new library. The memorial poems and pictures on the walls of the principal's office‚ with a drawing of slain teacher Dave Sanders prominent in the middle. The senior picture of the Class of 1999‚ with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in the extreme corner of the back row.
Columbine's name will always be linked to their murderous rampage five years ago‚ and today's students resent that.
"To us‚ we're normal high school students having a normal high school experience‚" said Jeff Wahl‚ senior class president.
Lee Andres‚ football coach and chorus teacher‚ said his music students‚ who will sing at Tuesday's memorial‚ recently asked him‚ "Why is there such a big deal about this?"
"They don't see it as the most famous high school in America‚ for all the wrong reasons‚" Andres said.
Andres does. He remembers that his fifth-period guitar class had started‚ and a student who had left for the restroom returned to report someone had a gun. Andres emerged to find students huddled on the floor of the commons room and hiding in bathrooms and elevators. He herded them out. Then‚ he recalls‚ "the boys were coming down the hallway‚" so he and about 25 students locked themselves in the auditorium.
Five years after the Columbine High School massacre‚ the reassuring routines of the present and the horrific memories of the past are inextricably entwined.
Time has eroded many overt reminders of the day two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 23 others before killing themselves. All the students who were there on April 20‚ 1999‚ have graduated. About 70 percent of the teachers are gone. The cafeteria has been remodeled and the library replaced.
But reminders remain. The 13 names engraved on a floor-to-ceiling stone panel at the entrance to the new library. The memorial poems and pictures on the walls of the principal's office‚ with a drawing of slain teacher Dave Sanders prominent in the middle. The senior picture of the Class of 1999‚ with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in the extreme corner of the back row.
Columbine's name will always be linked to their murderous rampage five years ago‚ and today's students resent that.
"To us‚ we're normal high school students having a normal high school experience‚" said Jeff Wahl‚ senior class president.
Lee Andres‚ football coach and chorus teacher‚ said his music students‚ who will sing at Tuesday's memorial‚ recently asked him‚ "Why is there such a big deal about this?"
"They don't see it as the most famous high school in America‚ for all the wrong reasons‚" Andres said.
Andres does. He remembers that his fifth-period guitar class had started‚ and a student who had left for the restroom returned to report someone had a gun. Andres emerged to find students huddled on the floor of the commons room and hiding in bathrooms and elevators. He herded them out. Then‚ he recalls‚ "the boys were coming down the hallway‚" so he and about 25 students locked themselves in the auditorium.
