Covering Columbine, Again

Anniversaries of tragic events like Columbine are never easy. Perhaps I've covered too many of them in my 30 years with NBC. Perhaps I am just too old to rekindle memories of shootings and bombings and plane crashes. Like the event itself, we in the "media" are invading the privacy of those who suffered and lost the most--and yet, having said that, ignoring an anniversary would also be wrong.

The story I will do for the Nightly News on Monday will not be about what was lost. That has been well chronicled, and going over it again serves no useful purpose in my view. Instead, when asked to do this anniversary story, I decided along with my producer Sylvie Haller to find some of the students (now adults) who are establishing careers to see how they are doing. While there are no surveys we're aware of detailing how the students who were at the school on April 20th are doing, two were found with inspiring stories of survival and moving on. Survival not in the sense of injuries sustained, but learning to cope with friends slain, making sense of it, and choosing careers, which will leave a lasting legacy of Columbine.

One is a filmmaker who this week will release a film he wrote and directed. Andrew Robinson's "April Showers" is an independent production focusing on how difficult it was for several students like him to come to grips with the shootings. The message, Andrew says, is not about those who lost their lives--that can't be undone--but rather those who lived through the tragedy and the help or lack of help they received in the days and weeks and months after when the news media went home and life for most returned to "normal." That, Andrew believes, is a lesson not learned or understood very well, even to this day.

Another student we will focus on is Crystal Woodman Miller. She was in the library when the shooting started, and she spent the longest seven and a half minutes of her life under a table as the two shooters killed all they could. There were 10 killed in the library, and several were friends of Crystal. Like Andrew, Crystal's career was in part guided by that day. She is now a motivational speaker who has taken her story to at least 25 states and seven or eight foreign countries. I had the opportunity the other day to listen to one of her talks, and the most amazing thing happened. A group of 100 or so teens had gathered, and, teens being what they are, there was a lot of chatter, and their adult instructor was having trouble calming them down. When Crystal spoke, however, the room fell silent, and for 20 minutes you could hear a pin drop. The teens were riveted to Crystal's story, which, yes, was about April 20th, but more importantly, it was about finding a path to guide your life on and committing yourself to it.

Both Andrew and Crystal will be in Colorado for the anniversary. Most high school students tend to go their separate ways after graduation, but for Columbine grads, there is a bond which, as the years go by and the news media finds another story to cover, will continue to unite them and, I suspect, keep them in touch with each other. But not about what was lost. Crystal says April 20th was really a beginning. And that is that story I am happy to cover.