First day back starts with music, parents forming human chain

By Bill Scanlon
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

6:30 a.m. -- As dawn breaks, music booms from an outdoor stage at Columbine High, filling the neighborhood with Pearl Jam's Alive and other rock and rap music. "They can't hurt you unless you let them," roars the band Everclear.

6:35 a.m. -- The Columbine Alumni Association sets up a banner, "Columbine Spirit," the first link in what is to become a 750-person human chain along South Pierce Street.

The association was formed in February as a way for alumni to give back to the school, co-organizer Nathanael Koch said. After April 20, it became something different -- an outlet "for us to come back for our own healing." At least 150 did. "So many of us wanted to help."

6:43 a.m. -- Mothers and fathers walk their teens to school, with no apparent embarrassment from either generation. Some wear T-shirts saying, "Yes, I believe in God." Other shirts read "Victors not Victims." But the vast majority wear a simple white T-shirt with the now-famous slogan "We are ... Columbine" emblazoned on the front and back.

6:50 p.m. -- Police are out in force patrolling the neighborhood streets. Adults mind the street corners and parents walk their students to school.

7:10 a.m. -- Julie Lebsack, mother of two Columbine students, joins a human chain of parents, alumni and other adults who will partially surround the school to help shepherd students in and keep the media out.

She says her kids can't wait to get back: "They are just thrilled. My sophomore said, 'I just want to go up and hug the school."'

She said she joined the human chain "just to let them know we're behind them whatever they need. Whether they're mad or sad or excited."

7:14 a.m. -- Chanelle Plank, 15, pauses before crossing over to school. "I'm not scared," she said. "Sad, yes. But I'm going to be strong. I'm not going to let Eric and Dylan stop me."

7:25 a.m. -- The human chain has grown to 500 and they break out in spontaneous applause as students walk in twos, threes and fours, down the sidewalk to the school.

"Nothing but cheers and yells and tears," said neighbor Ruth Peters. "Hugging the kids, the usual 'mom' stuff. So uplifting."

7:41 a.m. -- Students, gather in a parking lot outside the school for the "Take Back Our School Rally." Young people wave pompoms as they dance to the music blasting from giant speakers on the outdoor stage.

7:48 a.m. -- "Are you ready," shouts Mike Sheehan, Columbine's student body president, as he opens the rally. "Welcome home, Rebels."

Thousands of students, staff and parents cheer.

7:49 a.m: -- The Rebel choir sings The Star Spangled Banner without a hitch, without a wave, without a cracked note.

"We only had three rehearsals before today," said choir director Leland G. Andres. "I was very glad about it. You always worry if you haven't rehearsed enough."

He needn't have worried.

Andres, 60, has had lots of practice helping his students get it right. He is a Columbine original, starting at the school when it opened in 1973.

8:15 a.m. -- Weeping in the arms of a friend, Craig Scott stands on a hillside near where his sister, Rachel, was murdered April 20.

Parent Nan Jones, walking home from helping form the human chain, can't shake the sight of the crying boy.

"I just kept thinking about the kids who are not coming back to school," Jones said. "I think about the Danny Rohrboughs and the Rachel Scotts."

Beth Nimmo, Rachel and Craig's mother, says Craig was determined to go back to school.

"He feels he'd really fail Rachel if he let that keep him from coming back," Nimmo says. "He said, 'No, mom, I need to come back. I need to come back."'

8:17 a.m. -- The school's flag, which has flown at half staff since April 20, is hoisted to full staff as students, teachers and parents chant over and over "We are ... Columbine!"

"I have waited months to say this, and I say it with a great deal of pride," says Principal Frank DeAngelis. "Columbine, we are back!"

8:18 a.m. -- Junior Jade Gagne, 16, can't stand the pep at the rally, and walks over to the media bullpen in Clement Park to say why.

"It feels like a prison in there," she said of the ID checks and the video surveillance cameras. "I think it's stupid -- a waste of taxpayers' money. Eric and Dylan had IDs last year. They could have gotten in."

Jade said parents and teachers aren't helping, always asking how the students are dealing with the tragedy.

"If I hear another teacher talk about how we feel about it, I'm going to scream," Gagne said. "How can you get over something if you are constantly reminded of it?"

8:20 a.m. -- Music teacher Leland G. Andres wields the scissors that slice through the blue ribbon, marking the official welcome back to school.

Andres is a Columbine original, one of eight former and current teachers who opened the school in 1973 and who were there Monday ushering in a new year.

"I felt more relief than anything else," he said. "I always looked forward to first day of school. But today was special, simply because of what we went through last spring."

8:30 a.m. -- After the rally Columbine senior Kimberly Dehart, 17, goes back into the commons area where she was when the shooting began April 20. It was the second time she had been in there. The first time was before all the renovation had taken place and it scared her. But now she felt happy.

"I was just anxious to see the whole school. I know I'm gonna feel safe here. It's good that we're back. We'll get through it."

8:35 a.m. -- Fifty students inside Columbine distribute religious fliers, designed by St. Francis Catholic Church youth pastor Jim Beckman.

The fliers include a reading from Scripture and are reminders that the students are being prayed for, Beckman said.

8:36 a.m. -- Junior Nicole Dewitt didn't attend the rally or walk through the shield of parents because she didn't want to be reminded of April 20.

In fact, she didn't want to be at Columbine at all.

"I was so scared to come back," Nicole said. "My brother was so afraid he cried. I kept telling my mother I wanted to go to Chatfield. I'm afraid it could happen again."

8:45 a.m. -- Parent Nan Jones says it was heartwarming to hear parents clap for the kids, but wonders if the human chain achieved the opposite of its intention, by bringing more attention, emotions and stress to the kids. "It certainly was not the start of a normal first day."

9:01 a.m. -- Neighbors who formed a support group for the students head home, happy that they helped a little bit.

"The kids are doing better with this than the adults and parents," Ruth Peters said. "But I didn't get the sense that any of the parents were going home trembling.

"Kids were hugging their parents unashamedly. I love those kids. It was so uplifting."

9:14 a.m. -- A dozen parents of the Columbine victims gather to say they support most of what happened Monday, but want the library -- site of most of the killings -- dismantled and replaced with a two-story atrium.

"We need to change the focus," John Tomlin, whose son, John, was killed, said.

Dawn Anna, mother of murder victim Lauren Townsend, said she knew she did the right thing showing up Monday because her daughter, "would have expected us here, smiling to greet all the students, and seeing the smiles back."

Anna said the parents' group met under horrible conditions. But, "It was a comfort getting to know all of them. We've made lifelong friends."

11:25 a.m. -- The first wave of students on their lunch period arrive at fast food places near Columbine.

Richard Stephens Jr., a junior, eating lunch at Burger King, says Columbine is the same school as last spring, but students are a lot more respectful now.

"You know how kids call kids stuff and make comments about what people wear?" he asks. "You don't see that stuff."

11:55 a.m. -- Southwest Plaza food court: Senior Gary Morris says that when he walked into his science room Monday morning, he felt a need to look over his shoulder.

He mapped escape routes in his head and looked out the window to see how far down the climb is.

"I admit I'm shell shocked," he says. "Now, I wonder if the kid next to me is capable of this, shooting people."

1:45 p.m. -- Sophomore Candice Cushman, 15, leaves school early and walks home, saying it was too emotional for her to stay the full day.

"When I was in a classroom I felt I needed the door shut to feel safe," said Cushman, who was inside the school last year when the shooting began.

"I'm just leaving because I'm too nerve wracked. I can't get any school work done."

Candice said she became emotional when she saw the brothers and sisters of her friends that were injured in the shooting. "That's what freaked me out."

3:45 p.m. -- Reporters gather at Lance Kirklin's house to see how he liked his first day back in school since the junior was shot in the face on April 20.

Lance's father, Mike, decides it's the perfect time to turn the tables on the media. He picks up a home video camera and mixes in with the crowd of camera-wielding, notebook-toting people surrounding his son on the porch.

"What kind of grades are you going to get this year?" the father asks.

"All A's," Lance says, laughing.

Contributing to this report are staff writers Karen Abbott, Ann Carnahan, Manny Gonzales, Holly Kurtz, Sue Lindsay, Gary Massaro, Tanya Sierra-Del Real, M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Kevin Vaughan and April Washington.