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Murray State News (Murray, Ky.) article

Jess Nall
Staff writer

On Dec. 1, 1997, about 30 students gathered in
the lobby of Paducah, Ky.,’s Heath High School,
hand-in-hand, to pray for fellow classmates,
friends, family members and those unspoken.
After an “Amen” said in unison, 14-year-old
Michael Carneal walked through the doors of
the school, pulled a .22 pistol out of his backpack
and fired at the prayer circle.
Three teenage girls were killed and five others
were injured. Of the eight victims, Murray
State alumna Missy Jenkins Smith is the survivor
who sustained the most serious injuries.
The gunshot wound left her paralyzed from the
chest down.
In the 11 years since the shooting, Smith said
she has forgiven, shared her experiences and
confronted her shooter face-to-face.
With help from newspaper reporter William
Croyle, Smith co-authored the book, “I Choose
to be Happy: A School Shooting Survivor’s Triumph
Over Tragedy.” The book was released
Wednesday.
“The book begins with the shooting itself,
then my life growing up,” Smith said. “Next is a
chapter called Why’ It is a section about
Carneal’s interrogation and it reveals what he
was thinking when he pulled the trigger. A lot
of the book is about my recovery process:
Learning to live in a wheelchair, being in the
hospital and traveling to California for my
brace.”
Some excerpts from her book give an inside
look into Carneal’s actions after he confessed
and was sentenced to life in prison. Smith said
he wrote her letters during her senior year of
high school, detailing his day-to-day life in confinement.
“Some were apologetic and others would
simply tell me what he was doing in jail, some
would say he thought about killing himself,”
Smith said. “He wanted me to respond to him,
but I chose not to write. I felt like he wanted me
to help him through his emotions, but I was trying
to focus on my own healing.”
Smith said during her five-month stay in the
hospital, she was able to forgive Carneal for
what he had done.
“Forgiveness is the way I chose to get past
this ... it was for me, not for him,” Smith said. “I
just wanted to worry about getting better, not
holding a grudge.”
After she regained her strength and learned
to use her wheelchair, Smith was able to attend
her high school prom and graduation. She then
enrolled in Murray State in the fall of 2000. In
2004 she graduated with a degree in social
work and is now working as a counselor at Calloway
County Day Treatment Center.
Smith and her husband met at Murray State
and were married in June 2006. Shortly after,
William Croyle contacted Smith about the possibility
of writing a book.
“I had always wanted to do it but I wasn’t a
writer, so I never thought I could do it by
myself,” Smith said. “William was someone I
could trust; he had seen me on the show ‘Montel’
and had read news clips about me and was
interested in my story and thought it should be
told.”
While writing the book, Smith said she had to
relive some of the most terrifying moments in
her life, every last detail of how she felt when
the shooting was taking place and her emotional
state when she visited Carneal in the Kentucky
State Reformatory last year.
Smith said reliving some of those tough
moments acted as therapy.
“I feel like talking about it was my therapy
and I would recommend that anyone going
through trauma should talk about it,” Smith
said. “It helped me get through a lot of things.”
Speaking about her experiences to high
school students around the country also helped
Smith heal, and she said she hopes it will prevent
future tragedies.
“It has been my mission to stop this from
happening to another person,” she said. “One
thing that Michael Carneal did say in his interrogation
was that he brought the gun to school
for respect; he wanted people to fear him, know
that he had some kind of power so they wouldn’t
want to mess with him anymore. I want people
to realize how much bullying affects people
and what a powerful and destructive thing it
can be in someone’s life.”
Since the shooting and her self-discovery
while writing the book, Smith said she has
learned five very important things.
“One, the power of forgiveness,” Smith said.
“It doesn’t mean you are saying what they did
is OK but, you have to be able to forgive for
yourself. Two, I learned about bullying and
how much of an impact it can have on someone’s
life.
I learned the importance of telling people
when there is a threat. (Carneal) had warned
people for two weeks that something ‘big’ was
going to happen. He even pulled a gun on two
boys, but no one took him seriously. I learned
at 15 that I wasn’t invincible. Finally, I realized
I could do so much in a wheelchair. When I was
injured, I had never known anyone in a wheelchair
so I didn’t know about all the opportunities.”
Smith will have a book signing at the
Nashville, Tenn., Capitol Building on Oct. 11
for the Southern Festival of Books, and in
Frankfort on Nov. 15 for the Kentucky Book
Fair.
She said she will continue traveling and
speaking at local high schools, sharing what she
has learned and hopefully prevent future
school shootings.
Jess Nall can be reached at jessica.nall@
murraystate.edu.