School reopens after shooting

Associated Press

MARYSVILLE, Wash.

Hundreds of people lined the entrance to a Washington state high school as it reopened Monday, more than a week after a student fatally shot three of his classmates, wounded two others and then killed himself.

Waving well-wishers, many holding candles, greeted students returning to Marysville-Pilchuck High School after the Oct. 24 shooting. People cheered as buses and cars entered the school campus.

“It’s emotional, for sure,” said Deidre Butler, a local resident.

“It’s incredible that everybody came together like this. It’s still hard to believe that it actually happened right here.”

A 10:30 a.m. assembly started the school day, and lunch was in the gym because the cafeteria where the shooting took place remains closed. The normal class schedule, with its earlier start, resumes today.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee asked residents to wear red and white — the school colors.

The colors stand out vividly in a memorial with flowers, balloons and messages of love that covers the fence around the school.

Two students remain hospitalized at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.