LITTLETON, Colo. — It started with a small goal: Find a way to remember those slain in the Columbine High School shooting assault.
However, plans to memorialize Columbine's victims have turned out to be anything but small. There are three projects in the works, and the costs could run in the millions of dollars.
A committee of 30 students, parents, community leaders and victims' families have been working on one project, a permanent tribute. They hope the memorial, which has not yet been determined, will be ready on April 20, 2001, the second anniversary of the massacre.
"This memorial is not about my son and certainly not about me," says Bob Curnow, a committee member whose son, Steven, was killed. "It's about this community, especially the kids and the teachers and staff who survived.
"I think it's meant to be a motivator for all of us, in our own time. We should see it and take from it the motivation to live a better life. To me that's the purpose of a memorial."
This week marks the first anniversary of the rampage that left 15 dead, including two student gunmen, at the suburban high school. A private school assembly, a public service and public candlelight vigil will be held to mark Thursday's anniversary.
Besides the project Curnow is working on, a second campaign is raising money to build a new library, while a third is cataloguing countless notes, teddy bears, banners and other items left in Clement Park adjacent to Columbine.
About 250 design ideas have been submitted for the permanent memorial, said Bob Easton, executive director of the Foothills Parks and Recreation District, which is coordinating the effort.
In a survey of 2,500 community residents, most favored a memorial that included water, a garden and something to recognize individual victims, Easton said. A decision on the design is expected in June or July. Paul Morris, who helped in the Oklahoma City memorial to the victims of the federal building bombing, is helping coordinate the public effort.
Cost for the memorial, which will be built with private funds, has not been determined. About $100,000 had been donated as of late March and an additional $100,000 had been pledged, Easton said.
The library project is being coordinated by Healing of People Everywhere, or HOPE, a group of 54 families of murdered or injured students who do not want students to return to the second-story room, where 10 of the 13 victims were killed.
So far, the group has raised $1.3 million of the $3.1 million needed for the new library.
Meanwhile, officials from the Smithsonian Institute, Littleton Historical Museum and the Historical Society of Colorado are sifting through 200,000 items that were part of the makeshift memorial that at one point covered 2 acres in flowers and tributes.
"They ranged from a little 8-by-11 inch piece of paper that somebody wrote on and tacked to a tree, to stuffed animals, pictures, teddy bears, banners, wind chimes. There was even a 15-foot tall wreath and a brand new Schwinn bicycle," Easton said.
In addition to these efforts, some have proposed phone hotlines, youth programs and violence prevention efforts nationwide as memorials to the victims.
"People started calling here asking, 'What can we do, what can we do?"' said Brian R. Vogt, president of the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce.
"I said do something with the kids down the block. It's probably the best tribute and memorial anybody can do in regard to Columbine," Vogt said.
One Columbine students who survived the attack says the memorials and attention have an unintended effect: They make it difficult to move on.
"It makes for a certain atmosphere around Columbine," said Joe Trean, 16. "It kind of brings it back. It was traumatic but it's something you have to put behind you."
On the Net: HOPE: www.hopecolumbine.org