Concert held to benefit Denty brothers

Craig Scott, left, had the students stand, put their arms across each other’s shoulders and sway to the song ‘Lean On Me’. It was one of many poignant examples he had to promote a message of compassion and charity.

Mac Olsen
South Peace News

The sombre and upbeat music, photos, family film footage and writings depict a young girl kind to others and with a mature outlook on life – but also someone cut down before reaching her full potential.

Craig Scott uses these elements as part of a multimedia presentation to describe his sister, Rachel Joy Scott. She was the first student to die in the Columbine High School Massacre in Columbine, Colorado April 20, 1999. He was at the school then and shared his thoughts about the his sister with students at E.W. Pratt March 17.

“Today, I want to share with you the true story of my sister, Rachel Joy Scott. Rachel was the first student that was killed in the Columbine High School shooting. It was a shooting that affected all of North America. It was a very sad day in North America when parents, teachers (and) students were asking why this was happening in our schools. The schools are supposed to be a safe place for us to go.

“I’m not here to focus on a tragedy, but I do want to take you back to this day when the shooting happened - the day it affected North America.”

His presentation showed excerpts of news footage of the event, including students fleeing from the building to the protection of police officers and students running to their parents for tearful reunions.

Scott also discussed an essay his sister wrote, ‘My Ethics, My Codes of Life’. It describes the most important things to her.

“She talked about being honest. She talked about … not judging people. She talked about showing mercy and forgiveness. She said, ‘I have this theory that if one person will go out of their way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of the same.’ She ended the essay by saying, ‘You may just start a chain reaction’.”

From him there is a sense which, as she was writing her essay, a monstrous plot was being devised, leading to the most unparalleled horror to date.

“At the same time that she wrote this paper, a month before the shooting, the two shooters at Columbine (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold) were making a videotape in their parents’ basement. On this video, they were talking about their plan for what they wanted to do during the shooting. At the very end of this video, one of them picked up a gun and pointed it at the camera and he said, ‘We need to kick start a revolution. We need to start a chain reaction.’”

Scott made the point his sister was trying to start a “chain reaction” of kindness and compassion. He also says Harris and Klebold purposely isolated themselves from everybody else to embrace negative influences.

“They planned to do the shooting. They purposely disconnected from other people. They didn’t want to get close to their parents. They didn’t want to get close to friends. They isolated themselves and they chose a lot of very negative influences in their lives. They chose especially negative influences through the media. Over the Internet, they drew a lot of very dark, very negative stuff and also through movies and music. It never made them do what they did, but it had a big affect on them.”

In contrast, his sister was a positive person, she wanted to make a difference in other people’s lives, so she chose positive influences. One of those influences was Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who hid from the Nazis during the Second World War, but who later died along with many of her family in a concentration camp. To Scott, kindness was paramount for his sister and Anne Frank.

“What was amazing about this story was that she was in the worst circumstances … hiding in an attic and writing her diary. Yet, she still believed in looking for the good in life.”

During his presentation, Scott issued five challenges to the students and the first is to choose positive influences.

“You don’t get to choose who your family is. You don’t usually get to choose what school you go to. But you choose your other influences – what you watch, listen to, surround yourself with. Those things, those influences in your life, they can never make your decisions for you. But they do affect you, they affect all of us.”

He asked the students if the media provides a lot of negative images and many of them put up their hands in agreement. He says it is what people feel within themselves, which is most important.

The second challenge Scott gave the students is to dare to dream. He told them to write about their goals and keep a journal. Many significant people in history have kept journals and students should write about their life experiences, he adds.

Scott also quoted from his sister, “Don’t let your character change your color with your environment. Find out who you are and let it stay its true color.”

Then he had everyone stand with their arms across each other’s shoulders and sway to the song, ‘Lean on Me’.

His third challenge is, promote kindness through words and little acts of kindness. He puts these words into context with Harris and Klebold.

“What they did, they had absolutely no right to do. Getting put down by people’s words is absolutely no reason to take someone’s life. But how do you reach out to somebody that’s dealing with anger and hatred in their hearts, except to come to them with kindness and compassion?

“That’s my third challenge to you, as individuals and as a school. I think everybody … wants this school to be a place where … there are no rumours and gossip, where people aren’t labelled and judged. Instead, where there’s kindness, where there is respect.”

Scott likes to joke around with his friends, but not to the point of hurting them. He prefers to use words of encouragement, as his sister did.

He also talked about being caught in Columbine High School’s library and leading a group of students to safety, as well as the death of one of his friends.

“I can’t really describe the amount of fear I was going through. Just a couple of minutes earlier, I was joking around with my friend and now I was watching him die. I thought that I was going to be next. It literally felt like my heart was going to stop beating. I just asked God to take away my fear because it was too much for me to handle.”

He described the scene in the library, of standing up and looking around, seeing some students shot and trying to help one of them. Then, after determining the shooters were gone, he yelled for everyone to run with him out of the building.

“There was a police car outside and we all ran behind the police car. As soon as we got behind the car, the two shooters came back to the library. I realized if we (hadn’t gotten) out of there any sooner, more of us could have been hurt, more of us could have been killed.”

Later, a friend pointed to the spot where he believed a girl had been shot. Scott searched for hours for his sister and then waited for her to call.

“But the next morning, we got a phone call from the police department and they said that Rachel was the first one that was killed. They said she was killed right outside the school library. I realized that was my sister my friend was point at.”

There was a long silence when Scott said it. Then he said everything in his life – his relationship, his character – became important to him.

“Some people walk away with a new sense of who they are, a deeper sense of what life is really about. Some people walk away forever scarred and they never heal completely.”

Initially, Scott felt anger and hatred for Harris and Klebold, but later he regretted it.

“It was affecting my family – my brother, my other sisters, my mom, my dad – and if I held on to this anger and hatred towards them, I just became more like them.”

He chose to forgive the Harris and Klebold.

His fourth challenge is to eliminate prejudice by looking for the good in others. Scott says he has never been guilty of racial prejudice, but he has been guilty of prejudice.

“If you take a look at that word, prejudice, it simply means to prejudge. It means to judge someone before you really know who they are.

“So often, we judge people we don’t know. Sometimes we just look at a person. “Sometimes we get a first impression from them and it’s a negative first impression, so we walk away and say bad things about that person. But we don’t know that person. We don’t know their history. We don’t know their fears, their pains, their dreams. If we knew their story, we wouldn’t be so quick to judge them. We would probably have a lot more compassion.”

Scott issued a challenge to the students to not pre-judge others and to look for the best in them.

Later, he showed another segment of his multimedia presentation, with excerpts of his sister’s essay, photos of her as a little girl and the song “My Hands” plays. He asked the students to think about the people in their lives as they were watching it.

The last challenge he issued is for the students is to tell others how much they care about them and love them. He had them close their eyes and imagine all the people they care for. He also asked them not to pre-judge other people, but to look for the best in them and to be kind to them.

As a testament to Scott’s persuasion, the students put their hands promising to be more compassionate and caring for their families and friends.

Principal Dan Sloan says Scott’s presentation is very powerful.

“I think the message is something not only for the school, but for the whole community. It’s very valuable,” Sloan says.

“I can tell you as a principal that most of the problems that I deal with have to do with someone not being kind to someone else and it goes from there.”

He also says the school will be better for Scott’s presentation.

Following his presentation, Scott held an information session with the students about how to form a Friends Of Rachel Club, which is featured as a separate story in South Peace News.

Scott’s presentation was part of a conference held in High Prairie. Michelle Sandquist, the manager for Children’s Services in High Prairie and the area, worked with the High Prairie and Area Family Violence and Bullying Prevention Network to hold the conference.

South Peace News will have other stories about the conference in future issues.

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