A great assembly!

Rachel Joy Scott

Today, at our high school, we had a wonderful and very powerful assembly called Rachel's Challenge. For those of you that don't remember, or are too young, Rachel Scott was the first student killed at Columbine on April 20th, 1999. Rachel's Challenge is a presentation going across the US, challenging students to 5 challenges....eliminate prejudices, choose positive influences, keep a daily journal, look for the little things, and tell people how much you care about them. Rachel's brother, Craig was our presenter today at PHS, and he certainly made a big impact. I have never seen such a captivated audience at a high school assembly before! The students were listening, and most everyone in the room shed tears. Rachel's brother was in Columbine the same day his sister died. In fact, he was hiding under a table in the library when the gun men came in and shot most of their victims. Two of his friends hiding under the same table did not come out alive. Yes....very powerful. But the main message was about how Rachel lived her life, and believed that we can start a chain reaction by showing some compassion to others. They have a great web site at rachelschallenge.org, so check it out!

During a light-hearted moment in the middle of his presentation, Craig was showing the students some of his dance moves. The crowd loved it! Just as he was close to finishing his dancing, he announced "this is where I get to embarass one of your female teachers." Note to self - do not sit in the front row at a school assembly. Yep, you guessed it...I was the one chosen to be embarassed! Fabulous. So he pulled me out onto the floor and for 20 totally humiliating seconds, I had to dance with Craig Scott in front of PHS. Fun, but very embarassing.

Seriously, this was a very good assembly. They also have books if you're interested. I was amazed at the vision this young girl had about life and about knowing that she would have a short life. Very sad, but she has touched millions of lives, even in her death...much like Anne Frank.