What happens when a school shooting becomes a community’s unspeakable, hidden secret, and the people who survived it spend decades without talking about what happened, even with one another?
In episode two of HONESTLY, WE’RE FINE, hosts and trauma besties Kristina Anderson Froling and Heather Martin sit down with Shannon Hill, who was six years old during the 1988 shooting at Oakland Elementary School in Greenwood, South Carolina. Shannon describes returning to class three short days later in a community that barely acknowledged what happened, then spending decades trying to understand why it still affected her trauma and experience. She shares how becoming a mother led her into a years-long fight for safer schools, why she finally told her husband the full story 30 years later, and how survivor connection, therapy, and returning to the school helped her begin to process what she had lived through.
This episode is dedicated to the memory of Shequila Bradley and Tequila Thomas, and in honor of all of the survivors and the Oakland Elementary School community.
HONESTLY, WE'RE FINE is an ongoing podcast where survivors of mass violence discuss candidly with each other about the years and decades that follow — recovery, identity, relationships, media attention, advocacy, and the awkward, funny, complicated reality of moving forward. New episodes every other Tuesday.
Content note
This episode discusses school shootings, mass violence, trauma, media coverage, lockdowns, and long-term recovery.
Chapters
0:00 Cold open: “I thought they would care”
00:51 Welcome to Honestly, We’re Fine
02:30 Meet Shannon Hill
03:39 A school shooting no one in the community talked about
04:33 Finding other survivors after decades alone
06:03 How Bruce Springsteen brought Shannon and Heather together
07:26 The power of adding a second survivor voice
09:43 How becoming a mother sparked Shannon’s advocacy
10:46 She walked into her daughter’s unlocked school
13:02 The community’s “dirty secret”
15:25 Back in class three days after the shooting
16:00 The survivors didn't know they could talk about it1
7:07 Asking other survivors, “Do you ever think about it?”
18:21 “You are normal, and you are not broken”
20:46 Why survivors push for prevention before tragedy
22:02 Telling the school board what happened at age six
24:40 Explaining the “crazy safety mom” to her children
25:35 Telling her husband the full story 30 years later
29:26 Discovering how trauma shaped her childhood
32:25 Asking for school shooting drills at age 13
35:24 The teacher who tried to stop the gunman
36:23 Reuniting with her teacher decades later
39:19 Battling anxiety attacks with… wasp spray?
41:57 A workplace safety training triggers a panic attack
45:27 The fear of being dismissed as “overreacting”
47:37 When a child asks what adults are afraid to ask
50:44 Realizing she had to help herself, too
54:07 Returning to Oakland Elementary
57:20 Making space for survivors who are not ready to talk
59:17 Wasp spray, hockey pucks, or bullet proof backpacks - sponsors anyone?01:01:23 The jokes survivors can only make with each other
01:05:48 Recovery is a lifelong process
01:06:54 Kristina and Heather reflect on the conversation
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Learn more about the hosts’ work
The Rebels Project
https://www.therebelsproject.org/
Koshka Foundation for Safe Schools
https://www.koshkafoundation.org/
Credits
Hosted by Kristina Anderson Froling and Heather Martin
Produced by Jason Stefaniak
Edited by Jo Hernandez
Thumbnails and Channel Management by Mauricio González-Aranda
Social Media Coordination by Becky Palacios
#HonestlyWereFine #SurvivorStories #traumarecovery #mentalhealth
