GREENSBORO, N.C. - Before Parkland. Before Sandy Hook and even before Columbine, violence struck Grimsley High School in Greensboro.
A student shot an assistant principal and then killed himself in front of other students as school was dismissing for the day. Police say 16-year-old Nicholas Atkinson had been suspended, for smoking, by the assistant principal he shot.
“I was standing in the student parking lot," Mikki Weaver said recalling her memories from decades ago. “And I heard the gun shots. I never heard gunshots before, I didn’t have a point of reference. I just felt incredibly sad. There is a little bit of a shattering that happens. Where it changes the lens you see the world through. “
The then high school senior knew she had to do something – she recruited friends to join the Students Against Violence Everywhere chapter at Grimsley.
“More than anything we talked about inclusively, being aware of your peers, alternatives to violence, seeking counseling if you felt like you needed help," Weaver said.
The club captured the eye of then Governor Jim Hunt who told an assembly on campus: "You can’t ever be perfectly safe. But we can do more than what we’re doing."
By 1999, Greensboro students showed up in Time Magazine.
“There were a lot of politicians that were present around that time because it was certainly an unusual event," Weaver said. “It garnered a lot of attention.”
Today the club has 60 chapters in North Carolina and thousands across the nation.
“With Columbine, it felt like violence in schools was a new phenomenon, and the reality is there had been violence in schools long before them," Weaver said. "But Columbine and Sandy Hook and those mass shootings, those things feel more like terrorism. It feels different. The temperature related to violence has really changed.”
She thinks it’s great that kids are still getting involved in politics. But:
“I have children now that are the same age that I was in this club. And I don’t think things have improved. And that’s not to say the club’s not important and it doesn't’t have a place. But I just feel like there’s a broader conversation we have to have," Weaver said.
That’s why she’s still looking back to figure out how we can more forward together.
“As a whole if all of us spent a little bit more time looking outward and asking how can I help someone else instead of thinking about feeling slighted, jilted, disappointed, I think we would all be a little bit happier," Weaver said.
PHOTOS | October 1994: Grimsley High Student Kills Self After Shooting Assistant Principal
In digging through all the old newspapers, 2 Wants To Know also found an editorial by the News & Record from the day of that school shooting – it really shows how attitudes have changed. Reading:
“The risk of such a thing happening has much more in common with the risk of being hit by a meteorite than it does with day-to day school violence. As traumatizing as an incident like this can be to members of the school community, there’s no point in schools wasting time and energy trying to figure out how to prevent random events.”