A college admissions counselor for the University of New Hampshire with roots in Wells has been in Broward County, Florida, over the past few days and has been close to the unfolding tragedy there that rocked the nation.
Evan Beals offered his observations about what is happening in Parkland, Florida, in the wake of the horrific Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, that as of Thursday afternoon had claimed 17 lives. Nikolas Cruz, 19, has been arrested and charged with murder.
Beals’ job as a college admissions counselor takes him to high schools all over the country — his specific territory includes Florida, Minnesota, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
He visits public and private schools, attends larger, regional and national college fairs in these states and has been in Broward County since Feb. 2, visiting schools on the annual Spring College Fair circuit.
“Right now, even while grabbing coffee at a local Starbucks, 40 to 55 minutes away from Parkland, the general ‘shock’ factor is still in place,” Beals wrote in an email Thursday. “We all go about our daily lives like ‘it could never happen to us’ and that other incidents like this one are too far away from home to feel real.”
“It is incidents like this one that are a little too close to home,” said Beals. “We, as a group of recruiters, sometimes visit five or six schools a day depending on the season and region — it puts in perspective how close to home this incident really is.”
“Paired with the shock factor is also a feeling of ‘what can we do,’” Beals wrote. “This ‘what can I do’ mentality has come out in many ways. People are waiting outside of OneBlood to donate blood — really just trying to figure out how to make some sort of difference and I think that is what we need everyone to do.”
His observation is that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School family has shown a very strong sense of community.
“While the school is large … the community comes together like our small Maine towns do,” Beals wrote. “They come together over football and basketball games, they come together over a community block party, they have come together over these tragic events in their community as well.
“Everyone in the Broward County area is understandably shaken by this, because while it is one of the largest school districts in the country, they can all put themselves in the shoes of the students and parents at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School,” Beals wrote.
Beals said he is looking forward to a trip home this weekend, where he can spend time with family and friends. Now living in Durham, New Hampshire, he was raised in Wells and attended Wells High School.
He said both his family and the campus community at UNH have been supportive.
“This is a time to ask ourselves what we can do to make a difference,” Beals wrote. “Everything to make our communities more open, supportive, and engaged places help prevent things like this from happening. We cannot let the conversation be dominated by something else in the news — let’s not get distracted and let’s do the hard work and have the hard conversations that need to happen in order to move this situation forward.”
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