High schools across the state participated in assemblies, walkouts, and moments of silence Wednesday to commemorate victims of the Valentine’s day school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
Many high Schools opted for assemblies and moments of silence over the scheduled walkouts.
The events were held at 10 am - taking seventeen minutes, one minute to commemorate each of the seventeen shooting victims.
Amelia Lytle is a Mount Pleasant High School Senior and one of five other seniors who organized an assembly for the school. She said it is important to remember the victims.
“These aren’t just seventeen random names we wanted people to understand that these are families, tons of people are affected by just these seventeen victims. We felt it was really important to do something to remember them this way.”
Brandon Bjerke also helped organize the event. He said felt an assembly would be better than a walkout.
“The assembly was more impactful because we were able to centralize all of the students and get the message across. We wanted to make sure people knew that it’s about knowing who these people were.”
Jack O’Brien helped with the event as well. He said they didn’t want the event to be about politics.
“Whether we lined up with the gun control topic or not we did not care about. Of us five people we have some of the most diverse topics about this, we range from the right wing to left wing. We didn’t care. We just want to start a conversation so we can stop this from happening in the future.”
O’Brien said he wanted a walkout, but was convinced that they should hold an assembly first. He said he’d like to hold a walkout later in the year.
During the assembly, O’Brien and his peers read brief bios of each of the Parkland shooting victims while a projector displayed victim’s faces.
Mount Pleasant High School Principal Denny Starnes commented on the event that students quote “took ownership of it, and we’re proud of them.”