On Feb.14, Jupiter High remembered the 17 victims who lost their lives in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla.

Jupiter High’s Student Government President, senior Carty Murphy, with the help of Math and Woodshop teacher, Steve Misner, spent weeks making a memorial wall, where students and staff members could write words of sympathy and hope for those who experienced the Parkland tragedy.

“It took about two to three weeks to build the wall. Misner was in Woodshop when I went in and showed a picture of a similar wall and asked, ‘can you help me build this?’ Then, I was given a list and did several trips to Home Depot,” Murphy said. “Next thing we knew, there was a gorgeous moveable wall to paint.”

After weeks of hard work, Murphy, Misner and the entire SGA team were excited to share the wall with their Jupiter High family. But they were met with a challenge.

“The main obstacle of building the wall was how we were going to get it out of Woodshop. It had wheels, so that wasn’t the hard part, but the boards were so tall it would not fit through a door,” Murphy said. “So, Misner and [fellow Woodshop teacher Joe] Nee had a brilliant idea of cutting it across the middle so the top would fold down to move. Once moved, the top is propped up and held by two slates of wood screwed in.”

Originally, SGA was to host a lantern ceremony at sunset on Feb. 13, but the finicky Fla. weather did not cooperate.

“We had numerous obstacles to overcome. Our first idea was to release paper biodegradable lanterns on the night before the anniversary…when we tested this idea, we found that it was not going to work as we had pictured it, so we had to move to plan B. This consisted of using luminary bags and LED votive candles to be lit representing each life lost. Unfortunately,…we had torrential downpours on the evening of Feb. 13, so we had to regroup one more time and move the ceremony to Thursday morning, as per Dr. Iannitti,” SGA Advisor Jeanmarie McCann said.

On a beautiful Valentine’s Day morning, students, teachers and administrators honored the 17 lives lost on the same day a year before.

“Each victim’s name was written on a luminary bag, and a votive LED candle was lit.  This would have shown up much better in the evening, but the symbolism was still represented when the votive candles were lit representing each of the victims on the morning of Feb. 14,” McCann said.

McCann noticed students who attended the memorial were well behaved and wrote respectful messages on memorial board.

“I thought the members of the SGA did a great job preparing for the ceremony and a great job at the ceremony, especially our President, Carty Murphy,” McCann said.