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Even heroes still have battles left to fight

On May 15, every teacher’s greatest fear came true at a small high school in Ennis, Texas. Just one year after Columbine, a student would take a gun to a classroom and hold its teacher and students hostage. Heroically, the teacher negotiated the release of all of the students but one. She then shielded the remaining student with her body while a gun was placed to her head and threats were made. Ultimately, the 16-year old boy turned the gun on himself. He died immediately of a gunshot wound to the head. Alumna Andrea Webb (MEd ’91) was that teacher. After learning of a new development in her life, The Pride is checking in with her once again.

Thanks to the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, teacher and Alumna Andrea Webb (MEd ’81) is no longer a silent, unsung hero. Her bronze medal will now forever symbolize the 18 lives she helped save from a gunwielding student on May 15, 2001.

For the last three years, Andrea has lived in the aftermath of a tragedy that her coworkers and community have found too painful to talk about. Respecting the privacy of her students and fearing copycat incidents, Andrea also chose not to speak with the media following the incident–breaking her silence only briefly to share her story with The Pride (Fall 2001 issue).

She is now one of six teachers in the United States and Canada–and the only one in Texas–to be recognized by the commission. The program was established in 1904 to recognize civilians who perform a selfless act of heroism.

In Andrea’s case, national recognition by the commission and the support of family and friends may be her only consolation that what she did that day was the right thing. School board and city officials, for the most part, have remained silent, not wanting to offend the family of the boy who died.

“The Carnegie Medal is an honor of which I never dreamed–even after I received word of the nomination in early 2003,” Andrea relates. “The silence that surrounded the event since the end of May 2001 has been so deafening, that in all honesty, I never could afford to let myself dream that there might be some kind of acknowledgement that my life has been so changed by an uninvited event.”

After hearing of the award nomination, the father of the student who died contacted the commission protesting their decision to honor Andrea. He maintains that the boy was never capable of harming anyone in the classroom and that Andrea did not place herself at risk. The father also filed grievances against the Ennis teacher with the district’s superintendent and school board.

Through the constant battles, Andrea continues to teach and says she holds no grudges. “In order to heal,” Andrea says, “I have to accept that what happened and what I did is a painful and fearful event that people want to forget ever happened in Ennis, Texas.”

Despite the tragedy and everything that has followed, Andrea still teaches in Room 106 where the shooting occurred. “What happened on that day is just one event of many that have occurred on the many days I have taught here. This is my fortress, my home away from home, my academic sanctuary- a place created for students to feel safe, to feel safe to learn, and to learn to feel safe in being who and what they are. Were I to be moved to another classroom, black heel marks would mark the path of transition.”

In Andrea’s words

Three years later :

“May 15th of this year marked the third anniversary of an event from which I have realized I will never be able to walk away–in part because of what I experienced that day and in part because of what I have and have not experienced since that day. The day was a good one for me and my mind, heart, and soul were not troubled.

“I had only one contact on the 15th this year regarding the shooting, and that was a text message from a young lady there with me that day which read ‘Hey, three years & still going.’ My response was ‘Amazing grace, tempered steel, and a few close friends!’

“I still know that there was nothing more that I could have done that day than what I did. All of us who wanted to walk out of Room 106 alive that day did.”

On teaching:

“Second thoughts about teaching? NEVER. Teaching is my love, my passion, my calling. If anything, the incident has made me a stronger teacher, a teacher who wants to be better that I have ever been.”

On her medal:

“When I think about the medal, I wish that the event that brought it into my life had never happened and that so many lives had not bee damaged. The faces of the kids flash before me, and the scene replays through my mind at lightning speed.... a fast-forward in which I hear myself making the call to my husband and then the calls to 911, a fast forward to where I am walking out of my hall and see my principalwalking toward me and I tell him, ‘Boss, I got all out who wanted out,’ and then I feel a brief but incredible emptiness.

“The next thought is of the incredible load that lifted from my shoulders the day I got the call about the award–a load that I did not even realize was there. The recognition was a validation of me as a person and of me as a teacher who made a splitsecond decision that my students were my first responsibility.

“I wrote a letter of thanks to the members of the commission after the notification expressing my gratitude for an act of kindness which enabled more healing in a day that I had experienced in over two years.”

Read Andrea’s full story from the Fall 2001 edition at the Pride Online, www.tamu-commerce.edu/thepride. Click on “Past Issues.”

Alumni return for Golf Classic

Nearly 60 Alumni and University friends played in the 34th Annual Alumni Golf Classic Scramble last month.

First place was secured by the team of Lowell Ballew, Pete Smith, Jerry Smith, Pat Bagley, Byron Housewright, and Buddy Jones.

The second-place team included Johnny Rex Phillips, Bob Green, Larry C. Smith, Roger Conboy, and Bob Crain.

Third place went to Bobbie Purdy, Arlan Purdy, Rex Cook, Dwight York, Jerry Thompson, and Les Cox.

The Closest to Hole Award went to Ron Skrasek and Jerry Matthews. Longest Drive Award went to Johnny Rex Phillips.