He raised the gun and pointed it at my head. I told him, “If you care anything about Kelly, please don’t do anything to hurt her. ... Please, don’t hurt Kelly.”

U n d e r t h e G u n

Distinguished Alumnus Moses looks over the promised land

Dr. Mike Moses (right), general superintendent of Dallas Independent School District, pauses to speak with prekindergarten students on a first-day tour with Michael Palmer, principal of Joseph J. Rhoads Learning Center. Mike has been named this year's Distinguished Alumnus.

As school violence continues to make headlines nationwide, teachers are faced with the nightmarish possibility that they or one of their students could be its next victim.
One alumna, Andrea Webb (MEd ’81), recently lived the nightmare—but refuses the role of victim.

For one horrifying interlude at the end of last year, she and her tenth-grade students at their Ennis, Texas, high school were taken hostage. One boy would die.
Media outlets far and wide carried the story, but they did so without interviewing Andrea. Determined to neither contribute to the frenzy nor have the tragedy reduced to a trite soundbite, she refused to talk to all but her hometown reporter, Sarah Stephens. Recently, however, Andrea agreed to talk to The Pride. Below is the story (in which students’ real names are not used) from Stephens’ interviews immediately following the incident and several rounds of questions since then from The Pride to Andrea. Her responses are in italics.
Why did she agree to our interview? For one reason only. Because in our A&M-Commerce family are many teachers. And she wants each of you to know: “Life happens. There is no reason to be afraid.”

As third period began that Tuesday, veteran high school teacher Andrea Webb saw nothing to make her think the class would be different from that on any other day.
But in another classroom, a few students couldn’t help noticing that 16-year-old John was acting oddly. “We were taking a spelling test, and he didn’t want to take it,” one girl would say later. “He was shaking and asked if he could go to the bathroom. He took his backpack with him, and I thought that was a little strange.” Andrea started getting her 18 students ready to take their own quiz.

The kids came in, I checked attendance and started class. I saw John come into the room, which was not unusual. It’s normal for students to walk in to get a book or to use the computer.

For more than a year, John, a sophomore, had been one of Andrea’s students in a two-year program of pre-advanced placement English. A few months before, however, a schedule change had transferred him out.

He walked over to a back corner of the room away from the door and started rummaging through his backpack. I saw him walk back across and partially out the door, but then he came back in.

A student in Andrea’s class said afterward that she was walking over to give John a hug when he pointed a .357-caliber Magnum at her and told her to get against the wall.

Please see “THE SUN,” page 10