High School Was Different Before Columbine

Jake Wakefield, who graduated from high school in Fort Collins, Colorado, in 2003, recalls that April 20 was the date of his Senior Ditch Day. This second reason was sort of a joke, as far as Wakefield remembered—but it was still on seniors’ minds on Ditch Day. For Wakefield and many others who attended high school in the years shortly after the Columbine High School shooting, on April 20, 1999, the tragedy became a cultural touchstone, imprinting itself on teens’ minds and coloring their high-school years with nervous jokes, new fears, and new routines.