Published 7:53 am Wednesday, October 28, 2026

I am the parent of two teenage boys who have attended Bend-La Pine Schools since kindergarten, from Highland Magnet School to Realms Middle to Bend High. Never would I have dreamed that we would experience what transpired at Silver Rail on October 15th.

I’ve been a nurse for 20 years. A decade ago I worked as a school nurse with medically fragile students at Silver Rail — in the very classroom where this horrific tragedy took place. Every night since the event, I have woken in the middle of the night from a nightmare — the scene playing in my mind as it must have taken place. I have the image of that very classroom so vivid in my mind. And thanks to my own consumption of social media and the news, my brain is recreating the whole thing over and over in my subconscious mind.

This event brought Bend, Oregon into a club that should not exist — a club that no community wants to belong to. Within hours, there were reporters and cameras all over Brentwood Avenue.…