MARYSVILLE, Wash. — Hundreds of residents 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 killed himself.
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.
A 10:30 a.m. assembly started the school day, and lunch was in the gym because the cafeteria, where the shootings took place, remains closed. The normal class schedule, with its earlier start, resumes Tuesday.
Governor Jay Inslee of Washington asked residents to wear red and white, the school colors.
The colors stood out vividly in a memorial with flowers, balloons, and messages of love that covered the fence around the school.
The shooter, Jaylen Fryberg, 15, a popular freshman who had recently been named a homecoming prince, died of a self-inflicted wound after opening fire.
Zoe Galasso, 14, was killed during the shooting; Gia Soriano, 14, died Oct. 26; and Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, 14, died Friday.
Two other students remain hospitalized at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Both are Fryberg's cousins.