A great delight of the Herald's newsroom is our location across the street from Central High School. What fun it is to gaze down from the windows of our building's second floor, and watch the Central students trudge through snow to school in winter and stroll under the sun in the fall and spring.
That was the case back when Herald writers banged out stories on typewriters, and looked out to see Central students tossing Yo-Yos and twirling Hula hoops. It's still the same today, when we turn from our computer screens to see the teens flip open their Droids and iPhones as soon as they exit the school's doors.
Whatever the era, the sight of the students always brings a smile. It's easy to feel a kinship with them as we watch them pass through their pivotal high-school years.
And when tragedy strikes ...
Well, it strikes awfully close to home.
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Our hearts are broken today, and our prayers are with the family of McCain Endres, the 16-year-old Central student who died in a motorcycle accident a block away from school.
On Thursday, the day after the accident, Central students and faculty were in shock. The Red River High School community was deeply affected, too.
Young people and adults who'd never met McCain found themselves filled with sympathy for his family and sadness that his life had come to an end.
There's grace in that shared grief -- grace and fellowship, both of which can be a comfort, as all of us learn when we suffer a loss.
It's a paradox that when life hands us the very worst and brings about the death of a young person, people so often respond with the very best -- with outpourings of care and concern.
That's what's happening in Grand Forks today. The city is small enough so that the sudden death of a student hits home with families across town, yet big enough so that the collective anguish of those residents can send an almost tangible message to the grieving family that they're not alone.
You can sense that feeling in the many texts and tweets about McCain, which young people around town are sharing as expressions of their own grief.
And you can sense it in the Herald newsroom, where the tragedy that has hurt our neighbor school across the street has touched the people here, too.
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We've watched the students come by for years. Now, we mourn to see one of them go.
Our thoughts are with the family today, and we grieve and sympathize with their loss.
