Lynn students hear story of student killed at Columbine

LYNN – Virginia Keenan has seen the story of Rachel Scott played out at least 10 times, but Thursday she still filled her pocket with a thick fold of tissues because hearing about the first student killed during the Columbine High School shooting still gets to her after all these years.”Every time,” she said, just before ushering roughly 500 freshmen into English High School’s auditorium for a presentation on Rachel’s Challenge.Rachel’s Challenge is a movement that sprang up in the wake of the 17-year-old’s death during what is still considered the largest U.S. high school killing. Twelve students and one teacher were killed and 27 injured after two students opened fire in the Littleton, Colo., high school on April 20, 1999. The two perpetrators then took their own lives.”That’s a day I’ll never forget for as long as I live,” said Larry Scott, Rachel’s uncle.Larry Scott’s own two children were also at Columbine that day but escaped physically unharmed. He unfolded the event for students with a mixture of memories and videotaped interviews woven together with news footage from the actual shooting.In the days following the massacre, an essay written by his niece was found, Larry Scott said. Entitled “My Ethics, My Codes of Life,” Rachel Scott had written, “I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go.”That idea is the basis of Rachel’s Challenge, Larry Scott explained.Over an hour’s time Larry Scott shared more of Rachel’s writings, her dreams, her eerie premonition she had that she would die young but touch millions and her likeness to Anne Frank.Ironically, Anne Frank and Rachel Scott were both killed by the influence of the same man, Adolf Hitler. Frank, who was Jewish, died in 1945 in a concentration camp in Lohheide, Germany. Her wartime diary was published by her father after her death. Scott was killed on Hitler’s birthday, and her high school diaries have become her legacy, thanks in large part to her father, Darrell.Along with sharing Rachel’s story, Larry Scott also issued five challenges to students.He dared them to look for the best in people, dream big, choose positive influences, speak with kindness and to start their own chain reaction.”Go out and make a positive difference in the world,” he said.Keenan was not the only one to need tissues. Sniffles could be heard from all four corners of the auditorium and at least one student wept openly as a teacher then friends comforted her.Lynn English junior Jonathan De Azevedo watched the presentation for the third time.”It’s a very humbling film because we carry these values with us in all the events that we do,” he said.De Azevedo said watching the presentation is like a refresher. When he attends something like the Mix it Up Dinner, an annual Rachel’s Challenge event at the school, it helps him to remember why he’s doing it.Larry Scott said it doesn’t surprise him that the movement has lasted and is only growing stronger.”Everyone likes to hear stories and when you hear a good story you can’t help but be impacted,” he said. “Even if this wasn’t my niece we were talking about, I’d still be impacted.”He admits that being on the road roughly 170 days pitching the challenge to schools across the country is tiring, but he never tires of telling the family story.”We’ve always loved to help people,” he said. “It’s just in us.”