A tribute posted this week on the blog of a Sullivan Central High School teacher served as a reminder of the bravery of Sullivan County Sheriff’s Deputy Carolyn Gudger when she faced down a gunman at the school in August 2010.
Last week’s school shooting in Newtown, Conn., had many people in the region remembering the incident at Sullivan Central, when deputies shot and killed a gunman who had gotten into the school.
Sullivan Central teacher Shelley Martin remembered Central’s incident in a blog posting where she encouraged people to “look for the helpers,” when they think of last Friday’s massacre at the Sandy Hook school in Connecticut.
Martin told the Times-News that through her post, she wanted to remind people “that evil is overcome on a daily basis.”
“There is good in this world, and that’s what we need to focus on,” she said.
Martin and her sister, Stacy Jones, have a food blog called Herb on Herbs. She said Stacy suggested that she post a piece on the blog in response to the Connecticut school shooting.
Martin said she was somewhat reluctant at first because she didn’t want to be perceived as drawing undue attention to herself and her experience in the Central shooting incident.
“It was a big deal, but I was never in harm’s way ... I wasn’t in harm’s way due to this wonderful person (Carolyn Gudger),” Martin said.
In the blog post she entitled “Look for the Helpers,” Martin said “the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School hit far too close to home.”
She said she and her husband are teachers “who have experienced what it’s like to be in charge of a classroom full of teenagers while under a Code Red lockdown. Thankfully, we had a helper that day who kept an entire building full of students and staff safe from a crazed man with two guns full of ammo.”
Martin quoted Fred “Mister” Rogers, who encouraged people to “look for the helpers” in times of trouble, and she said Gudger “was our helper.”
“The Sullivan Central High School community knows, without a doubt, that if our wonderful hero had not been there that morning, multiple lives would have been shattered. Though she doesn’t like the term ‘hero,’ Officer Gudger was certainly the very kind of helper to which Mister Rogers refers,” Martin wrote.
She concluded the post with these words: “As we all move on with our Christmas festivities, may we not neglect to spend some serious time in prayer for a community who wasn’t as fortunate as ours. Let us mourn for the families of those twenty sweet little children. Let us look upon those cherub faces whose potential, whose dreams, whose lives were cut far too short. But also, let our thoughts be with the families and friends of those six ‘helpers,’ and countless others, who did everything in their power to spare as many lives as possible. And, when attempting to seek solace in a society overwhelmed by the depravity of man, look for the helpers, and let them serve as a light during dark times.”
The full blog post can be found at herbonherbs.com/blog/look-for-the-helpers/.
