Feb 13, 2009 7:58 pm US/Central
NIU Shootings One Year Later: Healing And Sadness
Survivors, University President Try To Cope With Tragedy
DEKALB, Ill. (CBS) ―
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Students walk around the campus of Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, a year after a shooting rampage left five victims dead.
CBS
It was the worst school shooting in Illinois history. One year ago, a mentally disturbed former student barged into a lecture hall and started firing indiscriminately at everyone in the room.
Thursday Feb. 14, 2008. Shots ring out in a class at Northern Illinois University's Cole Hall. When the shooting stops, six people are dead -- five students and the gunman, former student Steven Kaczmiercek. Fifteen others are wounded.
Harold Ng was one of the lucky ones.
"I got (shot) in the back of the head," he said. "I got grazed by pellets of the shotgun."
Dan Parmenter, Ryanne Mace, Catalina Garcia, Julianna Gehant and Gayle Dubowski were killed. Dubowski was sitting in the same row as Patrick Korellis, who managed to survive.
"That could've been me," he said. "I just felt so bad, that I couldn't do anything and that I couldn't help her."
For Gayle's father, Joe Dubowski of Carol Stream, it is a chilling day drilled into his memory.
"It was devastating," he said. "A whole group of us were in tears and hugging each other and comforting each other."
Since then, survivors, loved ones and university president John Peters have experienced a range of emotions.
"I have anger but I also have a great caring for people who troubled, and I'm very concerned," Peters said.
Dubowski said of his daughter, "I'm always thinking of her, even, even when I'm not thinking of her I'm thinking of her. Um, I miss most about her her laugh, her sense of humor."
"Talking about it helps me move forward and just get it out," Korellis said, "and it kinda replays like a movie."
"I think, you know, God has a purpose for everyone, and in the end it wasn't my time to go," Ng said.
One year later, NIU has added professional security in all dorms at all times. And there's the new Office of Support and Advocacy, started to provide assistance for students in the wake of the shootings.
Since that horrific day one year ago, Cole Hall has been locked up tight. Its fate is still uncertain as school administrators and legislators try to determine exactly what they want to do with the building.
Peters knows what he wants to do: renovate the inside, turning the infamous classroom into a museum, reopen the other classroom with a direct view outside of the memorial that will be built. It will cost the state $7 million.
"It can't open unless I have the dollars to renovate it, and I'm not going to take no for an answer," he said.
Then, there is the Images of Hope Campaign, a photo exhibit to be unveiled Saturday, submitted by members of the NIU community illustrating what hope and recovery mean to them.
"I think we're hoping first of all that it allows people to revisit these events in a comforting and safe way," professor Rhonda Robinson said.
As for the survivors, Korellis has graduated and begun a career. Ng passes the time making youtube videos. They are recovering, but will always remember.
"I want to try to get past it and try to get on with my life," Korellis said.
Asked what he wants people to know about himself or NIU, Ng replies: "I know that as a school we definitely got through it. We are definitely stronger as a school; you know, things can only get better."
Dubowski said, "You can learn from it if you don't run away from it and if you don't try to pretend that it didn't happen."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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