School event helps kids, parents process tragedy

The Route 91 Harvest festival shooting was hard enough for grown-ups to comprehend. Tiaree Norwood was worried children might have an even tougher time understanding.

“The way they (children) were talking about it was a little too much for me,” Norwood said, recalling reports of how the shooting was discussed by her daughter’s fourth-grade class at Priest Elementary School. “They were talking about it like it was a movie, and they were so insensitive about it. They needed a place to talk about it.”

So Norwood, the vice president of Priest’s PTA, arranged A Walk to Remember, an event to discuss and reflect on the shooting.

She invited students, teachers, parents and community members to the school Tuesday to write cards to first responders and shooting survivors and paint stones and decorate leis, which will be placed at the Las Vegas Community Healing Garden.

Attendees painted about 100 stones with messages such as “Forever in our hearts,” “Hope and faith” and “You are loved.” Many children painted their stones with hearts, rainbows, flowers and American flags.

“(Our school) is trying to be proactive to give kids the opportunity to speak if they need to,” Priest school counselor Leighanne Mainguy said. “We’re trying to take initiative in the student’s emotional learning, which is just as important as their academic learning, and the fact that this (event) happened to come up when we are trying to address this with students already, I think that was just timely.”

Event attendee Gloria Avila lost her niece Denise Cohen, who was with her boyfriend, Derrick “Bo” Taylor, at the festival. Taylor and Cohen were killed in the hail of gunfire.

Avila, a North Las Vegas resident, was planning to go to Paris Las Vegas to meet Taylor for the first time on Oct. 1.

Cohen had texted her updates from the country music concert until the shooting started.

“This is a release,” Avila said, painting “Vegas Strong” on a stone. “My niece was such an outgoing person, and she did a lot of volunteering. I just felt like it was something that I should continue doing for her in her honor.”

Avila carried a photo of Cohen and Taylor in her purse. She said she and her husband plan to ride a motorcycle to a beach in Santa Barbara, California, where Cohen and Taylor had lived, to scatter Cohen’s ashes.

“We’re taking her on her last ride,” Avila said.

Ana Quirarte brought her 10-year-old son Aidan and 7-year-old daughter Annaya to the event to understand the shooting and its aftermath.

“I wanted for them to be involved because they couldn’t do the blood drives or come to the donation centers with me,” she said.

Aidan said, “I was happy that I could come and do this. My mom sat us down in person to talk to us. How she told me, it was like, ‘Dang … it really hit you in the heart.’”

Teresa Cragon of North Las Vegas said she brought her 8-year-old daughter Maddie to the event to show her the positive in the tragedy.

“I think it’s important for us as parents to let our children know what happened in a way that they as kids would understand,” she said. “I know some children don’t have an understanding of what the tragedy is, and I think this (event) helps.”

Contact Kailyn Brown at kbrown@viewnews.com or 702-387-5233. Follow @kailynhype on Twitter.