'66 Englewood High grad mentioned kids in form for 20-year reunion; classmates recall shy boy

By Lynn Bartels
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

The father of one of the Columbine killers told classmates at his 20-year high school reunion that his goal in life was to raise two good sons.

Wayne Harris, a 1966 graduate of Englewood High School, mentioned his sons three times in a reunion form describing his life.

Under "goals," he listed "Raise two good sons."

Asked to complete the phrase "I like to stay home to ... " Harris wrote: "play with my kids and their mother."

For "highlight of my life," he wrote, "Birth of my two sons."

On Thursday, Harris' classmates at Englewood provided a rare glimpse into his life.

Harris, 50, and his wife, Kathy, have not publicly talked since their 18-year-old son, Eric, and his friend, Dylan Klebold, on April 20 turned Columbine High School into the site of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

The Harrises have refused to be interviewed by Jefferson County detectives and the FBI, who want to know more about relationships among family members.

In some ways, Eric Harris' high school experience echoed his father's. They were smart and shy. They didn't have a lot of friends. They were neither leaders nor troublemakers.

There was a key difference, though.

Some of Eric Harris' friends say he and Klebold were shunned and harassed at Columbine.

But none of that apparently mattered when Wayne Harris went to Englewood.

"We all got along," said Grace VanSteenwick McCain, class of '66.

At the 1986 reunion, Wayne Harris' classmates couldn't believe that the quiet boy they could barely recall had gone on to become an Air Force pilot who developed and tested military technology.

After the shootings, few classmates in the class of 444 made the connection that he was the father of one of the gunmen.

But McCain knew. She doesn't know why, because all she can recall of Wayne Harris in high school is a quiet, blond boy with freckles.

"I think his heart is probably broken into a million pieces," she said.

Other classmates took weeks to make the connection. Then they leafed through their yearbooks to find his black-and-white senior photograph, nearly identical to his son's.

"He wasn't a school leader, but he was not in the troublemaker group," Englewood graduate Jim Hatfield said. "He was smart and quiet."

Classmate Dean Dodrill said, "I think he was one of the studious ones, got good grades."

As a sophomore, Harris participated in boys glee, intramurals and volleyball. His junior year, he sang in the concert choir and played intramuals. The yearbook does not show any activities his senior year.

Harris attended the University of Colorado from 1966 to 1969, then enrolled at Metropolitan State College in Denver in 1971-72.

He enlisted in the Air Force at 24. A year before his 20th high school reunion, he was tagged to work at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio on the EC-18 -- the Air Force's largest electronic-warfare plane.

By that 1986 reunion, the quiet high school student obviously had become more extroverted.

Under "best habits," he wrote, "too numerous to mention."

As for "what I like," Harris listed "eating, drinking, flying and loving, not necessarily in that order."

Asked to list where he had traveled, Harris simply said "All over."

The low point of his life had been the death of his father. Walter Harris had worked at the Brown Palace, records show.

The highlights, he said, involved his sons, Eric, then 5, and Kevin, 8.

After Harris retired from the Air Force, the family moved to a neighborhood south of Columbine High School in southern Jefferson County.

Wayne and Kathy Harris have come under fire since the shootings.

Sheriff John Stone criticized them after deputies found the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun on Eric Harris' dresser and pipe bombs and bomb materials in his bedroom.

And the family of one of the slain students has sued them for failing to supervise their son.

Klebold's parents, Tom and Sue, also have not publicly talked. Their friends say the family had no idea Dylan Klebold was a troubled boy.

That's not true for the Harrises.

Eric Harris was taking medicine for depression.

His parents reportedly found a pipe bomb in his bedroom last year.

And Columbine parent Judy Brown told the Harrises their son was violent after she had a run-in with the teen-ager in late 1997 or early 1998.

"His dad did talk to him. It's not like his dad glossed it over. His mother was crying," Brown said. "I think that's important to know. They wanted to make it right."

But Eric Harris had an uncanny ability to fool a lot of people, including his parents, Brown said.

She could see that.

What she didn't recognize was that Wayne Harris had been one of her schoolmates at Englewood High School, graduating the year before she did.

Carla Crowder helped report this story.