20 years later, lives affected by the school shooting in Red Lake will be memorialized
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Missy Dodds placed a sweatshirt inside a plastic bag and tied on a name tag with a piece of red yarn.
Dodds stood an arm’s length from Starr Jourdain, one of her former students. Together, they labeled and bagged t-shirts and hoodies on top of a folding table just inside an entrance to Red Lake High School.
For the past three years, Jourdain, Dodds, along with several other former students, have hosted remembrance walks and raised money. They say it’s time to create a public memorial for those who lost their lives during a shooting at the school 20 years ago.
Jourdain created the design for the front and back of the shirts and hoodies. On the front are two roses, a ribbon and a wreath around the date: 3.21.05.
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“And, then the back is pretty cool ... says, ‘We are remembered, honored, loved, not forgotten. Red Lake High School,’” Jourdain said as she read aloud.
Jourdain was 14 years old in 2005, a student in the ninth grade. Today, she works at Red Lake High School with students in middle school and high school. She says some days are still difficult.
In 2005, a 16-year-old student shot and killed ten people, including himself, his grandfather, his grandfather’s partner, a teacher, a security guard and five classmates at Red Lake High School. More than a half dozen people were seriously injured. At the time, it was the second largest school shooting in the country.
Dodds was a math teacher at the high school. She believes a permanent memorial is an important step in healing.
“It’s like validating that it happened, acknowledging that happened,” Dodds said.
Whitney Spears was a freshman in 2005. She has worked alongside Jourdain and Dodds to help fundraise and plan.
“I think we’ve just finally started our healing journey recently and trying to figure out ways to honor our friends that we have lost that day, but not just the students, but also, there was others involved in the tragedy. [We’re] just trying to figure out a way to honor everybody in this memorial site,” Spears said.
One of the first to pick up an order of shirts was Michelle Graves, she’s worked an Emergency Medical Technician for Red Lake since 2004. Graves was among the first to arrive at the scene 20 years ago.
“We’re still healing after all of these years, you know, and we’ll continue. And we have a real strong support system here within our community,” Graves said.
Graves told Dodds that she and her husband will attend the ceremony and remembrance walk set to take place after school Friday. Graves and Dodds gave one another a big hug.
Dodds says she’s found a sense of peace in helping to organize and fundraise for the memorial.
“And, I don’t even have to say anything. They just know and like seeing people as they come up, even to get their shirts. You just get a hug, and your hearts just talk to each other,” Dodds said.
‘They’re right beside us every day’
Red Lake Nation has granted land for the memorial at the site on the south end of Lower Red Lake, between Red Lake Nation’s government center and the tribal college.
Walking out to the site of the future memorial, Jourdain and Dodd’s shoes crunched through the hard-crusted snow.
Jourdain and other organizers have created renderings of the proposed memorial. It will be made of reflective black granite, similar to a memorial to Red Lake Nation’s veterans about a hundred or so yards away.
Jourdain said each of those who lost their lives, and the first responders who arrived to help, will have a portion of the memorial dedicated in their honor.
As Jourdain and Dodds stood near the site of the memorial on the lake shore, an eagle arrived and hovered for a moment just overhead.
“Wow, that’s a good sign, right there. Look at how calm he is ... the eagle,” Jourdain said.
They said they hope to complete construction of the memorial by this fall.
“Yeah, it’s a good sign, a sign that we’re on the right path and we’re doing the good [work] and that they’re right ... they’re right beside us every day as we keep going to get it built.”
