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"I felt that if I was going to ask them to come back into this building and continue to be students at Columbine High School and graduate from Columbine High School, I could not allow them to do it alone," he said. "I made them that promise.
'I will be here with you.'" DeAngelis says he also considered leaving after this year's anniversary. "But then I started thinking, there's still kids that were in elementary school (at the time of the shootings) that have not graduated. So that would be a good time to think about leaving." Retirement appears to be a moving target. As long as he enjoys his work and feels like he's making a difference, he'll stay. The shootings no longer hang as heavily over Columbine High School as they once did, he says. The turning point for him was on the 2004 anniversary, when Dawn Anna, whose daughter Lauren Townsend was killed, spoke about celebrating the victims' lives. Until then, when DeAngelis thought of the victims, he pictured their deaths. "Now when I walk into that building, instead of being very guarded, I think about them in the hallway. "I imagine seeing Danny Mauser and Kelly Fleming at church. I see Rachel Scott on the stage. I see Matt Kechter playing football. I see Danny Rohrbough outside, Isaiah Shoels giving me a high five." ___ On the Net: Columbine High School: http://sn.im/g9k6l
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