Community coming together after tragic school shooting

SANTA FE, Texas (FOX 26) - The pain from Friday’s shooting is being felt throughout Santa Fe, so the community is coming together to support those who are suffering most.        

"Cynthia Tisdale, Shana Fisher, Jared Black, Aaron Kyle McLeod,” Santa Fe resident Randy Verm reads from wooden crosses he posted in his yard.  The crosses represent the eight students and two teachers killed after a gunman opened fire at Santa Fe High School.

"It’s just like I lost my own family member,” says Verm. But he didn’t lose a relative in Friday’s tragic school shooting, so he and his daughters built a memorial in their front yard to support those who did. 

"I lost my daughter when she was three months old.  I just know what the mothers and fathers are going through right now." One of Verm's daughters was good friends with Kyle McLeod.  "It’s hard to see a child that was in your house and now he’s gone." 

Nearly everywhere you go in Santa Fe, you’ll see words and memorials of support as residents go out of their way to help comfort those who are hurting.

"Especially the parents that are having to wake up the next morning and their children aren’t there with them anymore.  (So when you wake up happy you feel guilty about that?)  Yes,” explains resident Margaret Hendren.  Hendren and her granddaughter were dropping off flowers at a growing memorial on Highway 6. 

"I brought some flowers out here because Santa Fe is just a small community and some sick monster would come over here and kill a bunch of people because he was hurting inside and that’s just terrible,” says 11-year-old Jylian Hendren. 

As for Verm, he says several family members of the deceased have stopped by to thank him.  "I just pray for the families. The ones that are deceased are with God.  So they’re in a better place." 

After a few days, Verm plans to give the crosses to the families here and mail foreign exchange student Sabika Sheikh's to her parents.