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Columbine Dead Honored At Last

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By P. SOLOMON BANDA, The Associated Press

Published: September 22, 2007

LITTLETON, Colo. - Hundreds of people gathered under blue autumn skies Friday to dedicate an expansive hillside memorial to the Columbine High School massacre victims, after more than eight years of money struggles and occasional disputes.

The placid, stone-walled oval nestled in Clement Park is next to the suburban Denver school where two student gunmen killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves on April 20, 1999, plunging the community into mourning and disbelief.

During the ceremony, 213 doves were released and flew over the park.

Patrick Ireland, who was wounded in the attack, offered words of optimism. He was shot twice in the head and hung out of a library window while the tragedy unfolded, and has since had to relearn how to speak, walk and read.

'The world is inherently good ... 'Columbine' shouldn't be a word associated with something bad, with what happened. It should be associated with hope,' Ireland said.

The memorial consists of a broad oval sunken into the rolling park terrain, sheltered from the breeze that usually blows down from the high mountains on the horizon. The outer wall is called the Ring of Healing. A smaller interior circle formed by a lower wall is called the Ring of Remembrance. Both are built of red stone.

'It's its own place,' said Paul Rufien, a memorial committee member. 'It gets quieter once you get in there.'

Messages from the 13 victims' immediate families are inscribed in the inner wall.

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