Tribute will help many 'move on'

Once in a wheelchair, Sean Graves returns to honor fallen friends

Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 17, 2006 at midnight

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Every year, Sean Graves returns to the place where he was shot and his best friend and others were killed.

He smokes a cigar, leaves one behind for his buddy and moves on.

But this year, Graves returned twice to Columbine High School, on April 20 for his cigar ritual on the seventh-year anniversary of the shootings, and again Friday for the groundbreaking of a memorial to honor the 13 who died there.

Among those slain was Graves' best friend, Dan Rohrbough.

"The fact that I watched him leave is pretty traumatic for a 15-year-old," Graves said. "I'm always going to miss him. I think about him all the time.

"This memorial is going to help a lot of people," he said, standing with his girlfriend.

Standing.

The boy who was told he likely would need a wheelchair for the rest of his life hasn't used one since he graduated from Columbine High School in 2002.

"I keep it locked down and covered," he said, with a laugh.

"Actually, the cat sits on it," said his girlfriend, Kara Dehart.

"The cat loves it," Graves said.

He was a freshman when he, Rohrbough and Lance Kirklin walked out of the cafeteria and into an ambush. Rohrbough died and Kirklin was shot in the face. One bullet grazed Graves' neck, but three entered his abdomen. One of them bounced off a hip bone and fractured his vertebrae. He suffered what doctors call a T12 spinal-cord injury.

"They worried I wouldn't be able to walk," Graves said. These days, the 22-year-old is studying computer science at Arapahoe Community College. His fascination with law enforcement, honed by visits from police officers after the shootings, remains. He said he is considering a career in computer forensics.

Graves is nothing like the overwhelmed, skinny boy in a wheelchair who first met the president a month after the shootings.

And he is nothing like the sullen senior he was in 2002, frustrated by all of the rules and security at Columbine and the idea of his friends moving on without him.

"Hey," he called out to former students as they walked by after the groundbreaking. "That was great, wasn't it?"

"I think the whole thing was good. And it was great that President Clinton was here like he promised, and he's going to help raise money for it, too," he said.

As for Friday's thunder and lightning, Graves echoed the sentiments of so many others who said it seemed almost prophetic. Graves said the memorial is a far more appropriate attraction than the high school itself. He said it bothers him that tourists, sometimes by the busload, still come and shoot pictures of the school.

These days, Graves wears a dog tag he ordered from the Christopher Reeve Foundation on Oct. 12, 2004, his 20th birthday. It was the day that Reeve, an actor paralyzed in a horse accident, died. Reeve's wife, Dana, who was doing an interview, showed one of the tags.

"I've had it ever since," he said, caressing the tag's Superman logo and slogan "Move on."

Memorial fundraising

• Original design (cost estimate): $2.5 million, plus $500,000 upkeep and maintenance endowment.

• Current design (cost estimate): $1.5 million.

• Raised as of Friday: At least $1.24 million in donations, pledges and in-kind contributions.

• Expected from Friday's ground-breaking ceremonies: $35,000

• Largest donation made public: $300,000 by families of victims from funds left over from renovating the Columbine High School library.

• Largest private donation made public: $110,000 from the Coors family, includes $10,000 donated to mark the groundbreaking and $100,000 announced at Clinton's 2004 fundraiser.

• Clinton's contribution: Clinton on Friday announced a third donation of $50,000 to match an offer from Raccoon Creek Golf Course. He previously made two donations, one from personal funds and the second through his charitable foundation. Amounts of those were not disclosed.

In addition, Clinton's $250-a-plate dinner at a downtown Denver hotel in 2004 raised about $200,000 for the memorial.

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