'A Hero's Welcome'

by Erin Stuber<br>Herald Editor
| January 23, 2006 8:00 PM

Ten years after the school shooting in Moses Lake, Jon Lane recognized at tribute

MOSES LAKE — Last Friday was Jon Lane's day. Officially.

As signed in a proclamation by Gov. Chris Gregoire, Jan. 20, 2006 was Jon Lane Day in the state of Washington, a significant honor almost no one — including Lane himself — knew about until that evening.

The Moses Lake city councilman and St. Rose of Lima Catholic School principal was recognized Friday for his heroic efforts during the school shooting at Frontier Middle School on Feb. 2, 1996 in a tribute held at Big Bend Community College. In attendance were more than 200 community members, friends and family, as well as 12 of the students who were in the classroom at the time of the shooting.

For some of those students, now adults in their early 20s, the event was the first opportunity they've had to publicly thank Lane. Lane, then a teacher and coach at Frontier Junior High School, is credited with wrestling the gun away from Barry Loukaitis after the then-14-year-old student walked into his algebra class and began shooting. Loukaitis shot and killed teacher Leona Caires, students Manuel Vela Jr. and Arnold Fritz, and shot and severely injured student Natalie Hintz. Loukaitis was holding the remaining students in the class hostage until Lane intervened.

"I think a lot of healing went on," said Dawn James Jeter, who was one of the surviving students, of being able to thank Lane.

Jeter had not returned to Moses Lake since the year of the shooting when she moved to Texas where she still lives.

"It was good to see his face," she said of Lane following Friday's tribute ceremony. "His face for me is like the light at the end of the tunnel."

Now a stay-at-home-mom with three children, Jeter's eyes swelled with tears as she spoke of seeing her former classmates and Lane after 10 years.

"It was an emotional rollercoaster," she described. Jeter, who had moved to Moses Lake as a ninth-grader the month prior to the school shooting, left in November of that same year. She found it difficult to continue to see the students who'd been in that classroom with her on a daily basis.

"I'm 25 years old and I still have nightmares," she said. "It's definitely been a rough 10 years."

Her first night back in town, she had second thoughts about coming. Jeter said she called her husband and told him she wanted to come home. But by Friday night, Jeter was glad she'd stayed.

"This was good," she said, her head nodding, her eyes red. "It was a weight lifted off my shoulders."

In addition to being reunited with the now grown children involved in the school shooting, Lane also had a chance to see what some of those former students, his own family and many community members had been working on in his honor during the past week: A remodel of the downtown Moses Lake Boys and Girls Club.

Spurred on by a television production company working on a story about Lane, the club went through a transformation the past week. A. Smith Productions, which was also onhand to film Friday's tribute, first approached the Moses Lake School District about funding a similar project at Frontier Middle School in Lane's name. With the school so recently remodeled, school district officials pointed producers toward the Boys and Girls Club just down the street from Frontier, according to Brad Overberg, executive director of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Columbia Basin.

The production company had $6,500 in its budget for remodel expenses; the rest of the remodel costs were funded through donations and accomplished by volunteers.

A short film clip showing the club's transformation was played during the tribute Friday night. Lane and his family had an opportunity to view those changes firsthand Saturday afternoon when Overberg met them at the club.

"This is great," Lane said as he toured the club, the entrance of which now bears a medallion commemorating Lane.

"A Hero's Welcome," the iron medallion created by D&L Foundry embedded in the floor reads. "Inspired by the heroic efforts of Jon Lane, the community of Moses Lake came together in January of 2006 to renovate and rededicate this Boys and Girls Club in his honor."

"It's a great message to carry throughout the club," Overberg said of the medallion. "As a result of making good choices, look what you get," he continued, looking around the newly renovated building.

And while Lane was enthusiastic about the renovations at the club upon seeing them Saturday, he expressed just as much enthusiasm for the process which brought together the former students involved in the shooting.

"They were renewing something special," Lane said. "We share something very different and very unique that no one else can understand."