HERO

To no surprise to anyone, I haven’t been willing to listen to much news surrounding the shooting at DeerCreek Middle School yesterday (it was in my district, but far away from my school). I was working with Young Life with the Chatfield and Columbine schools when the shooting happened at Columbine (I wasn’t there at the school at the time), and have rather had my fill of hearing about the shootings—they seem to always say the same old things, and rarely offer anything helpful. However, the bit I have read about this one has been pretty amazing, but as I started tearing up at Starbucks, I decided to put the paper down and get on with the day. However the tearing up was a happy and proud tearing up. I’m sure there have been others, but I don’t recall hearing of a teacher/s tackling a shooter before—saving who knows how many lives. I have to pay homage to David Benke, Math Teacher turned Superhero. There was a message on my phone from our district head honcho this morning praising the effort of the DeerCreek staff—which is vastly deserved. However, it also stated that it demonstrate the importance of our training. I don’t recall any training telling us to tackle gunmen. I’m pretty sure it was more along the lines of keep the kids safe and out of the way and let the professionals handle it—of course that would have to be the official american policy. However, David Benke did the heroic, manly, and only right thing to do. While I hope I never find myself in the situation in which Mr. Benke found himself, I only hope that I would show the courage and strength he demonstrated.
My heart and respect go out to you, Mr. Benke. You are most definitely on my short list of heroes!