Finding Strength in Staying On

LITTLETON, Colo. —  Two-thirds of the staff at Columbine High School have left in the five years since two suicidal teenagers gunned down 12 classmates and a teacher. Only one administrator remains.

Principal Frank DeAngelis had vowed to stay only until every student in the building that day, April 20, 1999, graduated. But two years later, he still sits in the office where he once chatted with Dylan Klebold, one of the killers, about a student play.

“I don’t think I could have made it if I didn’t stay at Columbine,” DeAngelis said. “Twenty-five years of my life have been spent at Columbine. Being here provided strength for me during these difficult times.”

DeAngelis still has students who are siblings of those wounded in the attack. Among them is Maggie Ireland, sister of Patrick Ireland, who escaped out the window onto an armored car.

DeAngelis remembers that day clearly.

“I struggled for many months walking out of my office into that hallway because I relived that day over and over again,” he said. “I had flashbacks of the gunmen walking through, shooting.”

None of the 1,700 students will be here Tuesday. The campus is always closed on the anniversary of the attack.