We touched base Tuesday with Stosh Cienki, a 1992 graduate of Central High School in St Joseph who now lives in Cheshire, Connecticut. He has five children, four of whom attend Doolittle Elementary School, which is about 25 miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 children and six adults were fatally shot last week.

Mr Cienki is upbeat but thoughtful about the whole thing. He says he’s already noticed changes in security at his childrens’ school.

“At our particular school we have a doorbell,” Stosh says. “You buzz it, they let you right in usually. This morning, I rang the doorbell like I normally would, they popped over the intercom and asked me what I was there for. I had to explain why I was there before they would let me in.”

“That’s definitely something I have noticed as far as our school. It sounds like all the schools in the area are really upping their awareness, and taking more safety precautions. I was definitely happy to have to go through that with ours. It made me think that my kids were a little bit safer today.”

A much more difficult chore presented itself last Friday, when Cienki sat down with his children to explain to them what had happened.

“I think the thing that we tried to do is to reassure them that we have 100% confidence in our school and how they keep our kids safe,” he said.

“And we just tried to stress to them, look, we don’t want you to be afraid to go to school.  Sometimes bad things happen.  These things don’t typically happen.  They are going to happen from time to time, but you’re really in about as safe a location as you could possibly be.”

Stosh says the discussion worked. He says his kids had one or two questions, including what he called “the inevitable ‘why?’ ”

But since their conversation, he says he hasn’t had any more questions about the incident. He says his children have moved on.

“The thing that I worry about, is your kid looking over their shoulder, afraid that something bad might happen. We just tried to reassure them that we feel like they were safe, and they should feel safe. It’s not good to live your life in fear.”

Cienki was delighted to learn of plans for a candlelight vigil Tuesday night at Coleman Elementary in St Joseph.

“Our family continues to pray for the victims and their families. What I would certainly ask everyone in St Joe, and everyone else who’s listening, is to continue to hold those people in your thoughts and prayers, and just hope that we don’t see any more incidents like this, you know what I’m saying?”