Discovery Canyon Campus High School class of 2014 uses reunion to honor those lost to suicide
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Kelley Van Valkenburg's life went from an all-out hustle of being class president, cheer squad leader and varsity track star to leaving after the first semester of her senior year of high school.
She was suicidal.
"I was struggling with my own mental health and needed to get out of there," she said.
Seniors in Van Valkenburg's "Mean Green Class of 2014" at Discovery Canyon Campus High School were on the cusp of what would become a spate of suicide contagion and clusters in El Paso County that lasted for several years, to the horror of parents, friends and worried community leaders, who scrambled to figure out what to do.
"On one hand I wasn't too surprised because mental health wasn't talked about all that much at that time, but it was very shocking all the same because there were people and communities that I knew that were affected," said Tia Basak, another member of the class.
"It was a very somber and sad time."
Suicides of children aged 17 and younger doubled from seven across the county in 2014 to 14 completions in 2015, according to the El Paso County Coroner's Office. Self-inflicted deaths of teens hit a high of 15 in 2016, among 120,000 youth in the area, data shows.
Some of the seniors in the graduating class of 2014 had younger siblings at Discovery Canyon Campus, a preschool through 12th grade campus in Academy School District 20, who endured the height of the trend.
Discovery Canyon Campus withstood a big blow: Between 2011 and 2017, the school lost 11 students to suicide, according to a report, "Cluster Muster: Responding to Suicide Clusters in Schools." Six of the deaths occurred in a 13-month timeframe.
Across Academy District 20 over those six years, 28 students died by suicide, including four middle school students, the report states.
Van Valkenburg said she knew all the students from her school, some better than others.
A brother of a close friend of Van Valkenburg's took his life while the teens were in high school, and another good friend from high school died by suicide in college. Van Valkenburg's younger sister also grappled with mental instability, she said.
"It's hard thinking you're about to lose someone or you could have lost someone close to you," Van Valkenburg said. "It makes you more proactive and empathetic of people around you and making sure everyone is OK."
But students got through those unthinkable times, as peers and adults rallied to form a bond like no other in working to stem the fatalities.
They stuck together as they learned about suicide prevention and claimed solidarity in fighting an unseen force ravaging the soul of their school community.
In talking with former classmates now, Van Valkenburg said she's realized that for every suicide completion, there were quite a few other students who had attempted suicide or wrestled with thoughts of ending their lives.
"We were all struggling with mental health," she said. "It was a steamy pressure pot."
A decade later, the class of 2014 decided to pay it forward.
A planning committee for the 10th reunion, held Sept. 6-7 in Colorado Springs, turned the event into a fundraiser to benefit the Colorado Springs office of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Ticket sales minus costs for the reunion weekend, which included a bar night and a barbecue at the school the following day, along with donations from classmates who couldn't attend, amounted to about $2,500, Van Valkenburg said.
The contributions were given to NAMI to spend on its "What's on Your Mind?" program, an interactive presentation for middle and high school students from local experts who offer positive coping strategies, the challenges of growing up in this time, the importance of connecting with peers and trusted adults, and information on how to identify and where to turn when more help is needed.
"We were blown away when we heard that the class of 2014 wanted to do this," said Kirk Woundy, director of strategy and operations for NAMI's local office.
"A reunion is meant for the people who are taking part in it — how many of us would turn ours into a fundraiser for others?"
The end of the school years in those days seemed tragic, Basak said, and "making our reunion in some way healing for that time period made it a little more meaningful. It brought about a sense of purpose and brought the community together."
Although their high school experience included sorrow, the alums feel a deep connection to their alma mater.
"When we talked with alumni about this time in their lives, there were some tears. It still hurts," Woundy said. "But they have taken that pain and channeled it into trying to make things better. It's really admirable."
The mood at the reunion — which about half of the graduating class of more than 100 attended — was one of hope and optimism, Basak said. That's what the committee was striving for.
"We wanted to acknowledge everything that we went through while we were in high school and how we as a community can shape the next generation to be better," said Basak, who works as a systems administrator in California.
"That comes from our actions and our efforts now that we're adults and no longer kids. When you're a kid you feel so powerless; as adults we can have a little more control of how kids of today go through what we went through."
Reunion attendees also could take guided tours of the high school, which has added a new gymnasium and a new wing in the past decade.
Some reunion committee members participated in "alumni talks," a panel discussion followed by a question-and-answer session.
In addition to career advice — such as how students don't need to have it all figured out in high school — the topic of mental health came up.
"It was us saying, 'get some sleep, don't put as much pressure on yourself, take care of yourself, and therapy's great,'" said Van Valkenburg, who has worked as an investor relations manager and recently switched to a business development consultant in California.
"It's wonderful to see how much support there is now for students and the conversation that is available for students that wasn't even on the radar back then," she said.
A friend encouraged Basak to seek therapy the year after she graduated from high school.
Parents didn't seem to understand that having mental health issues didn't mean students had severe psychiatric illness or a bad childhood, she said.
"We'd talk about it amongst friends, and just knowing that other people were struggling brought a sense of camaraderie at that time," Basak said. "It was the best way we could cope with it."
The silent treatment surrounding suicide makes the situation worse, Van Valkenburg said.
"It makes it harder when adults don't want to talk about it, when they want to shield students from suicide because they think that's going to increase suicide," Van Valkenburg said. "The more stigma around it, the more shame you have around feeling depressed or anxious, and that perpetuates the problem."
The situation gave students the courage to speak up, Basak said.
"In general, it shone so brightly and was so obvious that it needed to be talked about because people were suffering in silence and thought they were alone," she said.
"It showed me that being vulnerable and a safe place for people to come and talk to you opens an avenue. It shaped how I think of mental health as something to not be ashamed of but be a source of safety."
Van Valkenburg said she'll continue to carry the time with her.
"I'll always hold space in my heart for the people that were lost," she said. "It's driven me to become more empathetic and more emotionally intelligent. I'm more attuned to my mental health and that of others."
Some Discovery Canyon Campus teachers of today have signs on their classroom doors that say, "I'm a safe place," meaning students can feel comfortable talking about their feelings in their midst.
A memorial outside the cafeteria consists of a portion of a fence that students painted in honor of their peers who left this life too early.
While there are suicide prevention trainings, community groups that study that issue and many resources available for parents and students in El Paso County, youth suicide continues to be a concern.
The county's record high of 15 teen suicide deaths occurred again in 2020, then dropped to four each year in 2021 and 2022.
Last year, 10 youths took their lives countywide, according to the coroner's office. Family discord, bullying, grief, school performance and identity issues were identified as risk factors.
