Remembering a principal and father who died in a school shooting in 1969

My heart dropped when I heard the news last Aug. 27. Police rushing to the church, the mayor running up the hill, Annunciation Catholic School parents terrified for their children after another school shooting.

I was back in Tomah Wisconsin, Nov. 19, 1969 — the day my father, Martin Mogensen, junior high school principal, was killed by a student in one of the first school shootings in this country. That day is always with me, and with each school  shooting all the details come flooding back.

I’d lived a few blocks from Annunciation in Minneapolis, across Minnehaha Creek, for 25 years. Our niece married there, I’d written a book about Mary Jo Copeland, who grew up in the parish, and had visited the church with her. I’d been to ...