MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the return to Columbine was a really greatly anticipated event. I think people were uncertain exactly how the day was going to unfold.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 1999-2000 school year will offer many challenges for us.</s>SAVIDGE: It was important for this particular day to be very positive and it was that. It was almost like going to a homecoming game, and it was that sort of excitement that you felt most, not the recollection of the tragedy.</s>TONY CLARK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Perhaps the strongest image is of the parents lined up, making themselves a kind of a wall between the students and the outside world, trying to protect the students, to try and do something that they couldn't do the day of the shooting. The principal tried to set the tone for the coming year.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At Columbine High School, we will have zero tolerance for cruelty, harassment, excessive teasing, discrimination, violence and intimidation.</s>SAVIDGE: And I think that there was this sense, a very strong sense, that the students were, as they said, "taking back their school." Taking back from the sense of fear, from the sense of tragedy.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this time let's cut the ribbon and raise the flag. It's time to begin classes. We are back!
CNN 20: Students Return to Columbine, August 16, 1999