Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Twenty years. Twenty years since the day hell opened beneath Columbine High School. Since students streamed out of the south Jefferson County school, their hands over their heads, fleeing two …

Memories of Columbine

Tom Mauser is the father of Daniel Mauser. He became a gun control activist after the Columbine shooting.

‘I feel like Daniel is walking with me’

Ask Tom Mauser about his shoes. Mauser’s son Daniel was killed at Columbine High School in 1999. In the years that followed, Mauser became an outspoken advocate for stronger gun laws. And through …

State Rep. Patrick Neville has said surviving the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 changed his life trajectory and inspired him to live in a way that honors the victims.

‘It had a big impact on my life’

Patrick Neville was a 15-year-old sophomore at Columbine High School when two armed students walked into the building and killed 13 people, then themselves. He was on school grounds but outside when …

Sean Graves spent three years in a wheelchair after being shot four times during the Columbine tragedy. When he received his high school diploma, he managed to walked across the stage.

‘I stepped out of the darkness’

Sean Graves will always carry some of Columbine with him. Shot several times in the massacre’s first moments, Graves spent three years after the tragedy in a wheelchair. In 2002, he rolled onto the …

Coni Sanders is the daughter of Dave Sanders, a teacher who was killed during the Columbine shooting. Coni, shown here in the Columbine Hope Memorial Library, works with violent offenders and the mentally ill as a forensic therapist.

‘We have love and hope’

They never stop. Coni Sanders’ father Dave Sanders was the only teacher killed at Columbine. To this day, Sanders still gets bombarded with messages from what she calls “Columbiners,” people …

Spreading love, support in tragedy

Sandy Austin was a school counselor at Jefferson High in 1999. A few years before, she completed her student teaching across the district at Columbine High. So when the call came on April 20 asking …

'We fell into each other's arms and wept'

There's one memory of Columbine that CBS 4 reporter Rick Sallinger says he'll never get out of his head. “That afternoon, buses kept bringing students to be reunited with their parents,” …

Missy Mendo and Heather Martin were students at Columbine during the shooting. The two helped form the Rebels Project, an organization that helps survivors of mass trauma.

'People heal on their own schedule'

Heather Martin and Missy Mendo are members of a small but growing group: survivors of a mass shooting. The two were students the day of the Columbine tragedy, and they escaped uninjured. But in the …

Frank DeAngelis was the principal for Columbine High School at the time of the shooting. He stayed in his role until he retired in 2014.

‘Every morning, I wake up and recite their names’

Frank DeAngelis stuck it out. DeAngelis was principal of Columbine High School the day of the tragedy in 1999. He stayed in that role until 2014. “When I retired, I’d been here through the …

Bruce Beck, stepfather of Lauren Townsend, and Dawn Anna, her mother, speak to the media in the Columbine Hope Memorial Library recently. The Lauren Townsend Memorial Wildlife/Scholarship Fund was started in honor of Lauren Townsend.

‘Keep looking up. Keep moving ahead’

A week after her daughter Lauren Townsend was killed at Columbine, Dawn Anna stood at a memorial event beside her husband, Bruce Beck. While the speaker said to bow their heads in prayer, Anna said …

Rick Townsend, the father of Columbine victim Lauren Townsend, visits the Columbine Memorial at Clement Park on April 12. Townsend, the president of the Columbine Memorial Foundation, said visiting the memorial feels like

‘I don’t have the answers,' father says 20 years after daughter's death at Columbine

Rick Townsend’s daughter Lauren has been gone for 20 years, and the thoughts still cross his mind. “I wonder what she’d be like today,” Townsend said. “We lost graduation. A wedding. …

‘We’ve got to reach out to one another’

It didn’t sound like much at first. “I think the first thing we heard was a call for someone with an ankle injury at Columbine High School,” said Bill Pessemier, who in 1999 was Littleton’s …

‘I don’t look at the world the same anymore’

Many Littleton residents know Richard Nakata as the magician at Reinke Bros., the costume shop downtown. But 20 years ago, Nakata was a deputy and bomb squad technician for the Arapahoe County …

‘It made me more empathetic’

Dr. Mark Elliott still wears a Columbine pin on his lab coat. Elliott, who runs the medical team at Littleton Adventist Hospital, said the memory of April 20, 1999, is vivid in his memory. “We …

‘There’s really not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it’

David Walcher had just gotten back from a celebratory breakfast and was on his way to lunch with a fellow member of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. “Every year, the county leaders would …

A Columbine student plants flowers at Dutch Creek Elementary School in April 2018 during the Day of Service.

Columbine Tragedy: 20 years later

Columbine High School students commit to serving others

More than a thousand students from Columbine High School will embark on service projects throughout the community on April 20 for the third annual Day of Service. “We wanted to take such a tragic …

Schools reflect on lessons learned

John McDonald, director of safety and security for Jeffco schools.

Hard lessons from Columbine help protect kids

Tragedy has changed the way area school districts assess and approach threats. As the home district of Columbine High, the site of what was once the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, …

For Littleton Public Schools, security evolves

Littleton Public Schools is often recognized as a national leader in school security, says Guy Grace, the district’s director of security and emergency planning. But when the Columbine tragedy hit …

DCSD changed following Columbine

At the Douglas County School District, 18 employees — a combination of armed personnel and security technicians — make up a 24-hour dispatch communication center in Castle Rock. The number of …

Englewood school district: 'There's always more we can do'

At the time, everyone was on edge and trying to figure out how to keep kids safe after the Columbine shooting, said Mandy Braun, director of safety and security for Englewood Schools. “Back then, …

`Hard to compare' security before Columbine

Chris Wilderman was a Northglenn Police officer back on April 20, 1999, when the first calls about a shooting at a metro Denver High School first started coming in. “I was heading to a school, …

Columbine Memorial Foundation campaign to fund endowment

The maintenance, improvements and upkeep of the Columbine Memorial are funded solely through private donations. In observation of the 20th anniversary of the shootings at Columbine High School, the Columbine Memorial Foundation is encouraging the public to make donations of $20 (or any amount) to create an endowment fund to maintain the Columbine Memorial.

Donations can be made online at www.ColumbineMemorial.org, or donors can mail donations to P.O. Box 621636, Littleton, Colorado 80162-1636.

The Columbine Memorial Foundation Inc. was formed after the Columbine Memorial Committee disbanded upon completion of construction of the memorial. The purpose of the foundation is to augment and facilitate fundraising, maintenance, repairs, volunteer efforts and improvements to the memorial. The group's mission is to sustain the memorial as a place of peace, reflection and remembrance of the events on April 20, 1999.

Inquiries to the board of directors should be sent to info@ColumbineMemorial.org. Phone inquiries can be made to Kirsten Kreiling at 303-332-3820.

The memorial is located in Clement Park, 7306 W. Bowles Ave., in south Jefferson County.

Our Papers

Ad blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an ad blocking plugin in your browser.

The revenue we receive from our advertisers helps make this site possible. We request you whitelist our site.

Columbine survivor: 'Not a single one of us walked out the same'