Students, faculty and staff from Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. are offering their support to NIU.

Tragedy struck the high school almost nine years ago on April 20, 1999, when two students opened fire on their classmates.

“Our students wanted to offer support to the students and staff members at Northern Illinois, because so many people were so supportive of us after our tragedy,” said Columbine principal Frank DeAngelis. “I was able to get a contact number and talked to an associate to president [Peters] to offer support.”

The school created a banner with the mascot for Columbine, the Rebels, along with NIU’s Huskie logo. Students and staff wrote messages on the banner over a week-long period. The banner had the message “You hold a special place in our hearts,” DeAngelis said.

NIU will eventually receive the banner directly from the high school.

DeAngelis has been at the school since 1979 and was principal at Columbine at the time when two students went into the school and killed 12 students, one teacher and injured 23 others.

“Every time a shooting occurs, many of our staff members are traumatized,” DeAngelis said.

“Even if it’s a different state – it still takes you back to April 20, [1999].

The principal believes that it is disheartening to think about how individuals continue to cut innocent lives short by opening fire in or on the campus of schools across the world.

“The most difficult thing is knowing that these continue,” he said.

As students here at NIU try to return to some sense of normalcy, DeAngelis said that Columbine still has yet to reach that point, and may not ever in the future.

“It will never be like it was here prior to the shooting,” he said. “We redefine what normal is and [NIU] will do that too.”

DeAngelis was at Virginia Tech recently to help the school prepare for their one year anniversary of the shootings on their campus.