Columbine students draw from experience
to spread anti-violence message

Many people around the nation were touched and afflicted by the events that occurred at Columbine High School, but Columbine students Richard Hoover and Evan Todd know first-hand what it was like to be caught in the cross fire. Spencerport Wesleyan Church offers an opportunity to hear Richard Hoover and Evan Todd speak about their experiences at Columbine High School, as well as their vision for the future. The program is scheduled for August 10 at 6 p.m. The public is invited.

Both young men were sophomores at the time of the shooting. They both lead dramatically different lives than the ones they had prior to the shootings that occurred their sophomore year of high school.

On the morning of April 20, 1999, the day of the Columbine massacre, Richard Hoover was in the school gym working out.

"It was a typical day," he says. "I woke up late, missed my first class, and then went to work out and train in the school gym."

Lucky for Hoover, he was able to escape the carnage that took place in the school's library and cafeteria. According to Hoover, an alarm was pulled and he escaped the building, thinking the alarm was only a routine fire drill. When he got outside he realized that the reality of the situation was much different.

Todd was working on class assignments in the school's library at the time of the shooting. The murderers, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, walked into the library and began to open fire.

"They went around asking students if they believed in God, or if they were jocks," he says. "They would then shoot the students if their answer was not pleasing to them."

Todd hid under a desk when the rampage began in the school's library, but Klebold and Harris shot through the desk attempting to hit Todd. He was shot in the back, with shrapnel hitting his eye, face, back, and other parts of the body. After he was shot Harris and Klebold confronted him.

"They held their guns to my head and asked me why they shouldn't kill me," Todd says. "I told them I had always been good to them and that I never had a problem with them."

According to Todd, there was a brief moment of silence and then they lowered their guns and proceeded to leave the library.

Todd was the last person to speak to either shooter before their deaths. He believes his carefully chosen words led to his being spared, teamed with the fact that he had never done the two any wrong.

The loss of their peers taught them many lessons that they were too young to learn, but that would mold and shape their future interactions with others.

Not being very religious prior to his experiences at Columbine, Hoover's religious views have changed in recent years. Hoover has become a Christian since the incident.

Following the shooting, Todd and Hoover began public speaking across the nation and around the world, speaking about their experiences. Students around the world have had the opportunity to hear their opinions and thoughts of many of the issues that are present in today's society.

Hoover and Todd hope to reach out to youths of all ages in order to prevent future shootings and other such events from occurring in the United States, as well as around the world. As high school sophomores they were in the process of deciding what career paths to take. Being unsure at the time of the shootings, they now feel that speaking and foundation work may be their destiny.

"I travel around the country in order to show teens that violence is not the answer, and to bring people into the things that we experienced in our own high school," Hoover says. "I will speak as long as I am able to and as long as people are willing to listen."