March 2, 2018
On Wednesday, February 21, Etched In Stone convened for an Editorial Board meeting.
The board meets infrequently, and only out of necessity; we meet to discuss current events and topics which are sufficiently relevant to warrant commentary and coverage from a student-run newspaper.
On that day, the subject was gun violence and school safety. After the Parkland shooting, there was a vast range of topics to cover. Rachel’s Challenge, gun control, and mental health all came up, as well as planned school walkouts in protest.
I found myself caught in careful deliberation and debate – is it really worth it to miss Trigonometry? In the meantime, I overheard my fellow students murmuring plans and expressing interest in the walkout. I started to realize the scale of the event – and the impact – and I realized that my decision had already been made.
The day before, the tension and anticipation of it grew heavy, like the humidity of Florida in July. At every turn, students were eagerly discussing their plans. Fliers filled the bathroom stalls. Teachers acknowledged the impending exodus, and articles appeared in the Coloradoan. The roots of the walkout, and its influence, reached throughout the student body and across the school, the community, the city. Everybody knew something major was on the verge of occurring.
While many students I knew organized carpools with each other, taking full advantage of their driver’s licenses, I ended up receiving a ride from my mom, another avid supporter of the cause. Joining me were three equally enthusiastic underage cohorts, and, with some convincing, I managed to talk a friend of mine into attending the protest from Colorado Early Colleges (a school which, ultimately, did not have quite as strong of representation as some local high schools).
On the day of the walkout, I spent the first three periods of the day impatiently checking the clock. Every few minutes, I would glance up, countdown the time until 12:30, and envision the event in my mind. What would the turnout be? Would there be any hiccups? What even happens at protests? The anticipation was consuming me.
The car ride to the event featured pepperoni pizza and breadsticks (courtesy of the aforementioned avid supporter that is my mother) and Green Day turned up to unnecessarily high volumes on the car stereo. My mom fished around in the back seat and handed me a cardboard sign drawn neatly with Sharpie, boldly displaying a literary reference of her own invention, A Farewell to Arms written in strong and slightly hasty calligraphy. Every member of that last minute carpool was filled with a sort of nervous energy, but we were ready- we had come for a reason.
The Coloradoan had envisaged that the expected turnout for the event was 1,000 people. 1,000 people. I knew that there was a large mass of Fossil students planning on attending, but the true scale of the event escaped me. Old Town square was packed. Old Town Square, where, on a sunny day in July, one may find a few children playing on the splash pad or a pedestrian plunking out a pleasant tune on the piano by the fountain, was filled to every square foot with passionate protesters. Not only high school students, but also parents, young children, elderly people, and teachers, occupying all available space. The air was filled with a variety of impassioned chants, and a sea of homemade signs, each with a unique and impactful slogan, filled the area. “Never again,” “Guns don’t kill people…um, yes, they do,” “Keep my school safe,” and “Harry Potter and Katniss prepared you for this, SAVE US,” they said, and those wielding them believed. In the the years I have lived in Fort Collins, visiting Old Town frequently, I had never imagined so many people in the square. The fact that some 1,500 people had come, by carpool, public transport, and by foot, was astonishing.
The next hour and a half was occupied with group chants, with silence, with inveterate sign waving. And with peace, even in the face of fervent counter-protesting. From the location where my party had positioned ourselves in the back, I could not hear the speeches shouted from the stage with a megaphone, but I found that some things did not have to be heard to be understood.
The amazing part, the truly incredible element of the protest, I discovered, was the unity. Amongst high schoolers, such cooperation and single minded purpose is rare, particularly in such large crowds. Yet, despite accusations from skeptics of looking for a way out of class, all the members of the congregation held a common goal, a common belief in a cause. The atmosphere formed by the yelling crowds commanded to the attendee that now is the time for change. Each and every protester brought to the march passion and purpose, making the experience unimaginably powerful.
Now is the time for change. It began, and will continue, with us.
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