KINSMAN Victim's brother sees similarities

Monday's school shooting in California brings back painful memories for a Valley couple.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
KINSMAN -- Parental guidance and smaller schools and classes might help prevent school violence in the future, says the brother of a man killed in a school shooting 22 years ago.
"Our society is used to two parents working. The kids don't have the 100 percent discipline at home like they used to have," said Andy Suhar of Kinsman, whose brother, Mike Suchar, 56, a school custodian, was gunned down Jan. 29, 1979.
"It's pretty hard for the principal and teachers to control when there are 2,500 kids in a school," Suhar added.
Suhar, a former Vernon Township trustee and trustee chairman, retired from Sawhill Tubular in Sharon in 1982 and now is a delivery driver for VEC Technology of Transfer, Pa.
Memories: The shooting 22 years ago and a similar shooting this week have several similarities. Both occurred on Mondays at San Diego-area schools, and both involved two deaths.
"It just brought back all the memories," Suhar's wife, Mary, said of this week's shooting.
"I think they took too much authority away from the teachers, and principal, too, as far as disciplining," she added.
"It's still real fresh in my mind," Suhar said of the 1979 shooting.
What happened: That shooting, the first school shooting to receive major national news coverage, occurred as children were waiting outside Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego for the principal, Burton Wragg, 53, to unlock the schoolyard gates.
From inside a house 100 feet away, Brenda Spencer, 16, fired 40 shots from a .22-caliber rifle, killing Wragg and Suchar and wounding nine children and a policeman. Spencer, who told reporters she fired the shots "for the fun of it" and didn't like Mondays, remains in a California prison.
In the shooting at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., this past Monday, Andy Williams, 15, is charged with firing at least 30 shots from a .22-caliber pistol, killing two students, Bryan Zuckor, 14, and Randy Gordon, 17, and wounding 11 other students, a student teacher and a security guard.
Born in Youngstown, Mike Suchar grew up in Campbell and lived for many years in Kinsman. Relatives said his name was misspelled on his birth certificate. A World War II and Korean War Navy veteran, he was buried at sea in the Pacific Ocean.
Suchar's son, Wilfred, lives in San Diego. Suchar's brother John lives in Kinsman. A brother, Walter, a pilot, was killed in the Vietnam War in 1966.