"I just want today to be a peaceful day to remember and to hope for the future," said Kallen Dunn, 36, who went with her son, Michael, a 15-year-old Columbine student.
Retirees Les and Vi Fast, who live nearby, walked across a field near Columbine in the morning sun. Like others, they said they were there for quiet reflection.
"We just can't believe something like this could have happened in such a beautiful community," Vi Fast said.
Her husband added: "Having been a schoolteacher myself, I was thinking of Dave Sanders," the teacher who bled to death while authorities waited to enter Columbine.
Five years ago, on April 20, 1999, Columbine students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and Sanders before committing suicide. The anniversary forced many to come to grips with an unspeakable violence.
"It's most definitely something I think about every day," Michael Shoels, father of slain student Isaiah Shoels, said on NBC's "Today."
"But, you know, we can't wallow in victimhood," he said. "Under the circumstances, we need to get out there and do something about it." He said he takes a message of peace around the country, "something on this Earth that is meant for me to do."
The school sat empty Tuesday, its 1,700 students given the day off. The building has been overhauled since the tragedy, with a new library replacing the room where 10 of the students were slain. People were scattered on the school campus Tuesday morning.
A memorial and candlelight vigil were planned for Tuesday evening in Clement Park, the sprawling field that virtually surrounds the school. Speakers were expected to include Anne Marie Hochhalter, paralyzed from wounds inflicted by the killers, and Dawn Anna, whose daughter, Lauren Townsend, was killed by the gunmen.
The students who were enrolled at Columbine then are long gone; the 1998-99 freshmen class graduated two years ago. But brothers and students of those wounded in the attack are still here.
Among them is Maggie Ireland, sister of Patrick Ireland, who became known to TV viewers throughout the nation as "the boy in the window" because of his dangling escape onto an armored car.
The only administrator left from 1999 is Principal Frank DeAngelis, who said staying at Columbine helped keep him sane.
"People ask me all the time when will that magical day occur in which Columbine will return to normal?" he said on ABC. "I don't think we'll ever return to normal."
Thanks to Morphine on another board (a board member's username, not the drug) for the heads up and pic.
