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The Up-Side to Tragedy
Rachel’s Challenge leaves nation-wide impact
Alyssa Riedel
News Editor
April 20, 1999. 15 students and teachers of Columbine High School lay dead by 12:08 p.m. mountain time on what began as a normal day in the city of Columbine, CO. 24 were injured, and survivors were left shocked as they attempted to come to terms with the massacre some had just witnessed.
They held each other and cried as police and news crews scrambled about, taking statements of what exactly each student saw. Some had just seen their close friends killed and some had been forced to plead for their lives. Some of the dead had been forced to plead for their lives, though it wasn’t successful.
The Columbine massacre is the fourth deadliest school disaster ever, after the Bath School disaster of 1927, the UT shootings of 1966, and the Virginia Tech shootings of 2007.
It has become obvious that the gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, had serious mental problems evident even before their rampage. The two had been masters of feigning empathy and insincere apologies for many things, especially after they were caught stealing tools and equipment before the shooting.
Harris, the alleged mastermind of their plan, was on anti-depressants after complaining of depression, anger, and suicidal thoughts to his psychiatrist a couple months before the shooting. He also had a website boasting of different ways to construct bombs.
Something obviously was not right, but some say that the anti-depressants he was on could have contributed to his unstableness. Supposed side effects of the anti-depressants he was on, Zoloft and Luvox, include depersonalization, mania, loss of remorse, and increased aggression.
Because of the possibility that these antidepressants contributed to Harris’ actions, there was a lot of debate surrounding teenagers and pharmaceutical anti depressants sparked by the events of Columbine.
Though all this information about the gunmen was never hidden, ignorance or lack of attention to the boys caused adults to never do anything about them. While this sparked even more controversy about gun regulation laws and how to deal with kids that exhibit possible signs of mental unstableness like them, this isn’t the point.
That morning of April 20, Harris and Klebold embarked on a cold blooded gun rampage after bombs Harris had made failed to detonate in the cafeteria during Columbine’s “A” lunch. What is important though isn’t remembering the gunmen, but their victims.
Columbine was a close knit community, where most everyone knew everyone else. Scenes captured by news crews after students were evacuated, show students crying and hugging each other, and Harris and Klebold’s first victim’s car was turned into an impromptu flower bedecked memorial in the school’s parking lot.
This first victim was 17 year old Rachel Scott, who was eating lunch with a friend on the lawn outside of the school’s library when she was shot.
Her funeral was attended by 2,000 people, and was broadcasted nation wide by CNN. It was CNN’s most watched event up to that point, even surpassing the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997.
There are accounts of a controversial exchange that may or may not have happened just after she was first shot. She was first shot in the leg, and supposedly after that the gunmen asked Scott if she still believed in God, and when she answered “yes”, this prompted the fatal shot to her head.
No one knows if this actually happened, because the friend she was eating with was shot and killed as well, but many believe it because Scott was well known for her faith.
Scott at the time was an aspiring writer and actress as well as a youth group leader at her church. Though the FBI concluded that this exchange about whether she believed in God or not never occurred, her parents insist that she was targeted by the killers for her faith.
A month before her death, Scott wrote an essay about her views on life, entitled “My Ethics, My Codes of Life.” In it, she explained her philosophy that “if one person can go out of their way to show compassion then it will start a chain reaction of the same,” as written in her essay. She also challenges people to “test [her ideas] for yourself, and see the kind of effect it has in the lives of people around you.”
This simple, two-page essay she wrote for a fifth period English class inspired the nation wide program of “Rachel’s Challenge.” Her parents started the program after her death and it’s carried out via her family as well as other presenters all over the nation. The program’s website, www.rachelschallenge.org, says that they reached 1.3 million students and teachers during the 2008-2009 school year alone.
Juniors and seniors may remember when Rachel’s Challenge came to Stratford back in 2007, with a presentation that students saw during homeroom. The presentation used Scott’s journals from before that fateful day along with videos from the shooting and examples of her actions to drive home its point of asking everyday students to treat others kindly and compassionately.
According to Scott’s theory, and the program’s beliefs, this compassion towards strangers may cause those people in turn to treat others with that same compassion and respect. This would therefore begin a chain reaction, defeating Harris and Klebold’s hateful actions with love and compassion.
As the 11th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting approaches, hopefully students will not forget this challenge issued three years ago. After the assembly, many students stopped to sign a banner in the snack bar stating “I accept Rachel’s Challenge,” pledging to try to treat others with the same compassion Scott wanted.
As the anniversary approaches, it’s important to remember the assembly and its message. Even to underclassmen who didn’t get the chance to see it, Rachel’s Challenge is all over Youtube and the program’s website has all sorts of information about the program and videos about it as well.
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