PARIS — “The experience was haunting, but my message is one of hope and inspiration. It is about relationships and the importance of relationships with kids,” Frank DeAngelis told School Administrative District 17 administrators, students and staff during Opening Day ceremonies on Monday, Aug. 26.

DeAngelis was the principal at Columbine High School on Aug. 20, 1999, the day two students opened gunfire at the school killing 12 students and one teacher, and critically injuring several others.

“Rachel Scott. Daniel Rohrbough. Dave Saunders. Kyle Velasquez. Steven Curnow. Cassie Bernall. Isaiah Shoels. Matthew Kechter. Lauren Townsend. John Tomlin. Kelly Fleming. Daniel Mauser. Corey DePooter. These are the Beloved 13. At 7 a.m. on that Tuesday, they walked into my school and never went home. They were killed by two of my students,” he said.

He was in his 20th year in education, his third as principal.

“I was the principal who loved cafeteria duty,” he added.

The only reason he was not on the landing leading to the cafeteria that day is because he had attended a function that morning and was late arriving at school. When the shooting began, he was in his office offering a job to a new teacher.

When his secretary told him there was gunfire in the building, he went into the hallway and saw one of the gunmen coming toward him.

“I thought about what it would feel like to have a bullet pierce my body,” he said. “The police asked me later why I would run toward the gunman. It was simple, my kids were in danger.”

His destination was the gymnasium, where he could hear girls screaming. The gym door was locked so he pulled a key ring heavy with keys out of his pocket. The first key he tried, indistinguishable from the rest, unlocked the door.

“I didn’t have a whole lot to do with finding that key,” he said.

The experience left DeAngelis with a lot of anger and anxiety. He tried to resign the day after the shooting but a school board member told him, “You are not going anywhere. We have your back.”

He was advised not to talk to the victims’ parents for fear of a lawsuit. He also was advised not to seek counseling because it would show weakness. He didn’t follow either of those advisements.

“A Vietnam veteran told me to get counseling. He said I wouldn’t be able to help anyone else if I couldn’t help myself,” he said.

In the days that followed, he visited each of the victims’ families in their homes.

“Three weeks later, I returned with flowers for Mother’s Day,” he said.

When classes resumed on Monday, May 3, 1999, they were held at another local school. A short-term second principal was brought in when classes were moved back into the Columbine campus in August 1999.

“I needed to be present and with the kids,” DeAngelis said. “It was a tough road but the staff made a promise to stay together at Columbine until after the freshman class graduated in 2002.”

The promise showed solidarity to students and the community as they moved toward redefining what the new normal would be for Columbine, he said.

“I was profoundly changed,” he said. “I had so much anger for those two killers. I had to let it go if I was going to continue at Columbine. I will never forget the act, but I couldn’t allow the anger to build up because I had to rebuild a community. We were forever changed and everything we did was under a microscope.”

Mass shootings are often remembered by the number of victims, but DeAngelis shared tragedies beyond the fatalities.

Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was critically injured in the massacre, lost her mother to suicide six months after the shooting.

Greg Barnes, a student barricaded in the science wing with Saunders bleeding to death, hung himself in his garage a year after the incident.

Students and staff suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Silver balloons decorated the halls to welcome students back to the campus but when one popped, students took cover. Slamming doors would cause the same reaction. Since the fire alarm was pulled during the massacre, the school had to practice silent fire drills.

“We couldn’t have Chinese food for three years because that is what was being served in the cafeteria that day,” he added.

“The Father of my church said, ‘You should have died that day but God has a plan for you.’ I’m not trying to convert you, but know that you need to find support. You have to take care of each other. People deal with things differently.”

Every weekend after the shooting, DeAngelis would visit students who were in rehab. One student, Sean Graves, was left partially paralyzed.

“He wanted to give up and I couldn’t tell him that things would get better,” DeAngelis said. “Some days I would visit him and he wouldn’t even acknowledge I was there.

Eventually, with the help of tutors, Graves was able to start school again. When he graduated three years later, he got out of his wheelchair and walked up to DeAngelis and said, “I am here to get my diploma.”

The community was moving forward, DeAngelis said.

There was a 50% turnover in staff following the 2002 graduation. DeAngelis continued as principal of Columbine until 2014, seeing every child in the area who was in pre-school at the time of the shooting through graduation.

DeAngelis said the shooting did not change who he was as a principal. “On April 16, the Friday before Prom, I told the students I cared about each one of them. The day after the shooting, April 21, I told the students I cared about each one of them. It’s always been about relationships. It’s about building a team and surrounding yourself with that team.”

DeAngelis set out to connect students despite their backgrounds. “I went to the skate park and the smoking pit to see why those kids didn’t come to assemblies,” he said. “They were brutally honest with me and said they didn’t come because the same students were always recognized.”

He urged them to come to the next assembly where he handed each of the students a carabiner stamped with the phrase “We are Columbine”.  He told the students, “Each one of you is a link at Columbine. Each one of you is special. There are going to be bad days, but remember you are always going to be connected to Columbine. We are family, let’s figure out how to become one.”

Nearly 1,600 carabiners were linked together into a chain that still hangs in the halls of Columbine High School. “When you look up, you know you are connected to someone else,” he said.

DeAngelis continued handing out carabiners each year to freshmen with instructions to link it together with their classmates’. “You are stronger when you are connected to 400 other links,” he said.

One student, Kevin Yagovane, transferred in and never received a carabiner.  His mother had abandoned him, he had been through a few foster homes and attended several schools, DeAngelis said.

On the last day of school in 2014, Yagovane left a letter in DeAngelis’ mailbox. It read, in part, “The acceptance and family atmosphere that you helped create here at Columbine has really grounded my life and has helped me create friendships that I will always remember.”

During the final assembly, DeAngelis read Yagovane’s letter and gave him a carabiner. “He never got a link. Kevin needed a link and that link was Columbine,” DeAngelis said.

He told SAD 17 staff all the students in the district are their kids.

“It doesn’t matter if you are a teacher, a bus driver or maintenance, you are all responsible for them walking across the stage at graduation,” he said. “What I see here is a team effort and I applaud you. This is not how it is everywhere else. You help each other and don’t care who gets the credit.”

Each year following the massacre, DeAngelis would challenge students and staff to remember the Columbine victims by committing 13 acts that would make the school community a better place. He gave SAD 17 teachers and staff the same challenge.

“With deliberate acts of kindness, evil will not win,” he said.

Copy the Story Link