The Rhinelander Daily News - Online news and information for the Rhinelander, Wisconsin region

Giles Morris - Northwoods Media

When tragedy strikes a small community, no one is left untouched. In Crandon, where a young police officer, Tyler Peterson, took the lives of six young people, injured a seventh, and then ended his own life on Oct. 7, 2007, the past year has been a painful daily journey through the grieving process.

On Tuesday evening the families of the shooting victims will hold a simple prayer vigil at the site of the killings to commemorate the anniversary of the tragedy that took the lives of Bradley Schultz, Aaron Smith, Jordanne Murray, Katrina McCorkle, Lianna Thomas and Lindsey Stahl.

Throughout the Crandon community shellshocked residents had to process their own grief privately and publicly, in small ways and in big ones, with the help of school administrators, pastors, grief counselors, loved ones and peers.

While no part of Crandon’s community was left untouched by the tragedy, outside of the families of the victims and shooter, the school community was perhaps hardest hit by the killings, which involved students and recent graduates during the high school’s homecoming weekend last year.

Crandon School District Administrator Dr. Richard Peters said the close-knit nature of the town has heightened the feeling of grief in his schools.

“It’s been a long and difficult process because you’re talking about teachers who’ve had these children in class and in some cases watched them grow up,” Peters said. “Because we are a small community many of our staff, teachers, and students were related to the victims.”

Peters said over 100 of Crandon’s school children were directly related to the victims or the shooter. Because of the network of connections and memories created by the close relationships, students in the school community lived with the reality that each day could bring the tragedy to life again.

“There are all different kinds of triggers that can bring back the loss and we just try to be sensitive to that and help them continue to process the grief over their loss,” Peters said.

But while nothing could have prepared the Crandon community for what happened last October, Peters said certain resources that were in place before the shootings occurred proved crucial in the months following.

“We, as a school district, have been blessed with a full-time police liaison,” said Peters. “As a school administrator I meet with city and county officials on a regular basis. We appreciate, looking back, that we had some of these things in place.”

In addition to the close relationship with law enforcement Peters said he relied on an organizational resource that he had cultivated over the years with the Wisconsin School Public Relations Association (WSPRA).

It was WSPRA, he said, that helped him in the days after the event to bring some semblance of order to his school community.

“I had been involved with them and they were here the day after the tragedy occurred asking me, ‘What are the kinds of things you’d like to so and what do you need to happen?’” Peters said.

With the help of the WSPRA staff, Peters said he was able to hold a press conference immediately and send letters to school parents with information about how they could talk to their children about the tragedy with age-appropriate language.

Peters said that for each step in the public healing process, he experienced his own personal challenges.

“Personally it was a difficult challenge because I was processing. I knew some of the victims well and I also knew the person who did the shootings,” Peters said. “I was processing my own grief while I was trying to work with the community.”

As a result of the urgent demands that followed the crisis, Peters said he also learned how to share responsibility with his staff.

“If there’s something that I took away, it’s the importance of having a clear picture of where and what to delegate in a crisis situation,” he said. “It’s not something you can do alone.”

Peters said the response from the school community staff, counselors, board members was tremendous. He also said learned to listen closely to the people who were most profoundly affected by the tragedy, so he could understand their needs.

“I learned about sensitivity to families when they are in crisis,” Peters said. “You have to remember that it’s very important to listen and to hear their message because until you do that there really isn’t an avenue to act.”

While the year has been full of difficulties, Peters said he has seen progress.

“I have seen our school community moving toward recovery and being brought close together in the process,” he said. “I think they have a strong appreciation for life and for the gift of life for having gone through the whole grieving process.”

Crandon High School will commemorate the anniversary of the shootings with a simple moment of silence at the start of the school day and then with smaller optional activities throughout the day for students who want or need them. A number of grief counseling groups still meet regularly at the schools, and some of them have requested the opportunity to meet on the anniversary day. The counseling office also intends to make a bulletin board available for students who wish to write down their thoughts and feelings.

Peters said he and his staff have worked hard to create opportunities for the students to process their grief actively over the past year.

“What the grief specialists tell us is they want the students to be acting and doing as they are going through the processing of their grief and not just holding it in,” said Peters.

Having been through the first year after a tragedy that rocked his school community, Peters had a message of hope as he reflected on a year of grieving.

“Early on people were asking me how long it will take to get back to normal and I told them there is no going back. We’re creating something new,” Peters said.

Patrick Dean, the director of Wisconsin Grief Education Center, has worked closely with Dr. Peters and the school community since April. Dean was called into Crandon in the spring by the Hope, Healing, and Helpful Choices Committee (HHHCC) of Forest County, a citizens group that helped the community find resources for dealing with their grief. Dean said the anniversaries of tragedies carry specific challenges.

“The first year anniversary brings attention back to the event, because you notice the year of firsts,” Dean said. “Holidays, birthdays, graduation... All of these firsts come in the first year after a tragedy and it’s natural for the feelings to resurrect.”

Dean, a Marquette University faculty member who has helped school communities with grief before, said Crandon’s small size and the magnitude of the tragedy made accentuated its impact.

“In a big-size city the impact of a crisis will be diffused in the population,” Dean said. “In a small town like Crandon, I don’t know if I’ve even come across one person in my work here who hasn’t been impacted.”

Dean said anniversaries are difficult because they accentuate how personal the grieving process can be by imposing a time-sensitive milestone.

“It’s a tough time. When there’s a crisis such as this, there’s a whole range of emotions that go with it,” Dean said. “Shock is one of the most predominant and it can last weeks or months. There are people right now who want to move on and others who need to hang on, because they’re coming out of shock and as the shock recedes the grief begins to be processed.”

Dean said during the grieving process anger surfaces that can instigate conflict and divisions between loved ones. He said on of the challenges of managing grief as a community is realizing that people confront grief individually.

“People grieve in their own ways at their own time, not in lockstep,” Dean said. “While some people might be moving on at the moment, other are just moving into their grieving.”

As an outsider to Crandon with deep experience with grief, Dean said he was particularly impressed by how the Crandon community has come together to confront a tragedy of catastrophic proportions.

“In this tragedy which will forever be just that there are many good people that have stepped up and provided service to the community in Crandon and in Forest County,” said Dean. “I know there are people in the community who have felt alone with their grief but the reality is there is help out there for them.”

John Suminski, director of Suminski Funeral Home in Wabeno, was involved in the process of starting the HHHCC. He said the committee’s work helped bring resources to the community as it began to take on the job of processing what had happened. With the help of grant money from St. Mary’s Hospital and Ministry Health Care in Rhinelander and continued support from the National Presbyterian Church, Suminski and the committee were able to bring in professionals like Dean and many others, to help members in the community during a time of real need.

“I think before we had any programs there was a lot of anxiety and a lot of frustration as to what could be done to help the families,” said Suminski. “It left me feeling kind of helpless.”

Suminksi said that countless community leaders –– like Sue Hill of Webber Hill Funeral Home, Pastor Bill Farr of Praise Chapel Community Church, and Dr. Gina Koeppl Behavioral Health Services Director for Ministry Health Care played crucial roles in leading the Crandon community and the greater Forest County community on the path towards healing.

He also said actively engaging the healing process through his work with the committee was crucial in dealing with his own grief.

“It’s been healing for me to provide some resources to the families to work through this,” Suminski said. “It’s put me in touch with resources that have helped me with my own grief. We were all touched by this and affected by the loss and the tragedy.”

Tell us what you think...

Comments »

The comments above are from readers. In no way do they represent the views of the Rhinelander Daily News.