Foreword I’ve learned in my journey over the past 20 years that living in the aftermath of a tragedy like Columbine is a marathon, not a sprint. On April 20, 1999, my community and I became members of a club that no one wants to join. We had to redefine normal—a lesson I now share with other communities that have shared in similar tragedies when they ask, “When does it get back to normal?” For us, normal changed that day. The shooting not only affected the four classes of students (1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002) who were in the building that day but also impacted anyone who had ever gone to Columbine. Our school opened its doors in 1973, with the first class graduating in 1975. When those shots were fired, there were people who saw their school in the media and were saying, “That’s my school. Those are my teachers.” They took it personally, even though they were not in the building when the shooting happened. After the shooting, we had to pull our community together. We needed to stick together. That evening and in the days following, I realized that the one thing we needed to do was to build on the outstanding tradition that had been established at Columbine since it opened its doors. We have always been family. I had to build on that. There was so much negativity occurring. I’d come to believe that we needed to not dwell on the negative but rather build on the positive. One of the things I had come up with at my first assembly as principal back in 1996 was the phrase, “We are Columbine.” Of course, there was the normal Columbine pride that our students and alumni had. After the shoot- ing, that phrase took on a whole new meaning. We all came together—not just the students, past and present, or the faculty, staff, and administrators but also the parents, grandparents, and others. It took all of us to rebuild the community. We came together as one, almost like a phoenix rising up from the ashes. We did not allow this horrendous act to separate us. We were
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