Community rallies around Schlegel family

Recently, Chris Peterson’s modest home in south Gunnison was filled with family and friends from all eras of her life. They gathered to break bread, play cornhole and share stories about her son Christian, who had died by suicide just days before on June 28.

Within hours of the news of his death, her front yard was packed, as nearly 60 people milled in and around her home. Burgers were thrown on the grill and neighbors cleared the parking lot so tents could be put up to shield everyone from the sun. She sat in a circle of his friends and through stories of his adventures, learned things about him she’d never heard before — some more mischievous than others. Included in the group was Corbin Harshman and Merlin Mapes, Christian’s lifelong friends.   

Alongside Colton Didericksen, Christian, Merlin and Corbin were known as the “four amigos,” inseparable since grade school. The boys wrangled the very best out of the Gunnison Valley, four-wheeling and paintballing out on Hartman’s, camping up Taylor Canyon and tearing around town on their bikes, insured with the short-lived invincibility of being fifteen. 

As a teenager, Christian endeavored to do everything to the max, Merlin said. He was the first to ride the BMX track and the first to tip the edge of his skateboard into the bowl at the Gunnison skatepark. Merlin once dared him to ride a dirt bike down a steep hill, calling him on a bluff that he was the best biker in the crew. He recalls, minutes later, seeing Christian wheel the bike back up the hill, covered in dirt and scrapes, gripping broken handlebars. Many times, he returned home with a broken bone, as if it was a ritual, grinning ear-to-ear. Visits with local orthopedist Rhett Griggs were frequent, Chris said. 

It was the type of mischief where practically all the evidence disappears each morning, with nothing but a few sets of footprints on the rodeo grounds where four boys had romped around the night before Cattlemen’s Days. 

“He always sent everything to the max. No holding back,” Merlin said. 

But it’s the Fourth of July when the boys were young that lingers in Corbin’s memory, running amuck in the softball fields, tearing around town on bikes and finally collapsing on Jorgensen Field, hands sticky with sugar and faces tanned with Gunnison sun, to watch fireworks bloom in a black sky. The ritual occurred every year the boys were in town. Corbin tried to spend last year’s holiday together, but it didn’t work out. 

That night at Chris’ house, these stories and more flowed in the early hours of the morning. But this wasn’t the first time Corbin and Merlin gathered to mourn the loss of a friend, nor was it the first time Chris and her friends mourned the loss of a child. The scene was a near replica of one eight years ago.

A very hard year

In March of 2015, the trio of friends — Christian, Corbin and Merlin — drove to Jennifer Didericksen’s house on a cold winter afternoon after learning that Colton took his own life just days before. In the following four months, two other Gunnison High School students, both 16, also died, by suicide.

“It hit hard because there were so many of them,” Jennifer said. “And there are no answers as to why in a short amount of time.”

In the aftermath of losing their close friend, the boys pulled closer together. The trust was deep, Corbin said, forged in their many adventures. Hikes and camping trips were planned more regularly and after-school sessions at the skate park became more abundant. They made promises that they would never put each other through that again, Merlin said. But coping is imperfect, and so the pain pulled at them too.

“It hit all of us like a brick. It was horrible. Colton was the anchor of our friend group. Whatever we did, it was always with him. He was the one holding everything down,” Corbin said. “We did our best to remember the best out of Colton and in doing so, everywhere we went, we took him with us in our hearts.”

As boys grieved, so too did the community. At Gunnison High School, newly-hired school counselor Sarah Macort recalled couches lined with students, wondering, “What did we miss? How did I not know?” She soon started a grief group to help students unpack these questions and the next year, instituted Sources of Strength, an peer-based program that focuses on upstream prevention for suicide, bullying, substance use and violence.

For Chris, a single mom, watching her close friend lose a child and her son lose a friend pushed her to action. As long as she’d had boys, their friends had practically lived at her house. In 2016, she organized the valley’s first-ever Out of the Darkness Campus Walk, bringing community members together to walk for suicide prevention. The event raised over $20,000 and went on to occur in-person each year until COVID hit. She also joined the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and sat on the Colorado board for five years.

Christian joined her in these efforts. Photos show him marching alongside his mother at the Out of Darkness walks, holding suicide prevention banners. Each year, the family took a group photo at the end of the walk, a token of their shared commitment to be there for one another when the road ahead seemed dark.

Sources of Strength flourished at GHS in the early years. Macort recalls seeing an uptick in the number of kids bringing their friends to a librarian, a teacher or the kitchen manager. The program is now used by Gunnison County Juvenile Services and has become a common

language, Macort said. It is dialogue that helps someone understand what “strengths” they have and when to go to a trusted adult for help.

Going local

For all the marches organized and donations garnered, Chris felt she needed to shift her focus locally. Sometimes it takes a tragedy for people to raise money, she said. Maybe it’s a quirk of human psychology or the reality that each person has their own hardships. Attendance at the walks dwindled over the years, as did donations. 

At the start of 2023, Chris stepped down from the Foundation. After Christian died, the mission to keep dollars and work local became more clear, as she witnessed her local friends and neighbors show up for her day in and day out. More awareness for local suicide prevention can also offer immediate help for those who are struggling, Chris said. 

“​​I don't think [Christian] realized that instead of an 800 number, he could go online,” Chris said. “And, I just learned this, but he didn't realize or didn't think anyone would understand what he was going through.”

In the nearly 30 hours of training and eight courses Chris has completed, all give a number of signs that may indicate somebody is struggling. Neither Colton nor Christian displayed these signs, the mothers said. Instead, it was small changes in behavior, nearly imperceptible shifts in daily habits that only become consequential in hindsight.

“​​I will never know. I will never have an answer,” Jennifer said. “For me, and Chris, there's never going to be closure because you just don't have an answer.”

Just months before he died, Christian moved back to Gunnison from Oklahoma, where he had lived and worked for nearly seven months as a detention center officer. The job was difficult, as the center was short-staffed, and due to a recent skateboarding injury, he spent most of his time alone in the guard tower for those last six weeks. The work drained him. And he didn’t share much with Chris, afraid to look weak or admit that he needed help, she said. 

“Even though we were really good friends, you just never really know what battles people are fighting and they're not telling anybody about,” Merlin said.  

When he got back, he started working with Christopher Kline Construction, a crew that is more family than coworkers, Corbin said. Christian worked hard and long each day, an impression that remains with his coworkers. 

“In work, you got to see the brilliance in that kid,” he said. “He was gifted at what he did, and that transferred into his everyday life. He just gave his all to whatever he was doing at the time”

Progress slow, but steady

In the last eight years, mental health resources in the valley have grown. Crested Butte State of Mind offers up to 10 free mental health visits and can help connect people with therapists afterwards. The number of therapists in the Gunnison Watershed School District has increased, but the District still needs to bring on bilingual therapists, Macort said. For years, the Gunnison Valley Health Coalition, with Gunnison County Substance Abuse Prevention Project, has run several types of suicide prevention trainings.

The work has pushed the community to get mental health into daily discussions, threading the idea that it’s ok to seek help into conversation. Although each loss is devastating, progress creeps on, invisible to the naked eye, said GCSAPP Youth Coordinator Emily Mirza. It is a cause that slowly inches forward in conversations in school hallways or around bonfires at Hartman Rocks. 

“​​It is okay to not be okay. Reach out. It's okay to have a really bad day and just need someone to talk to, no matter who it is,” Chris said. “There's got to be a way to tell all the young men that it's okay to want to talk and want to share.”

People in crisis should call the Colorado Crisis Services Hotline at 1-844-493-8255 or text TALK to 38255. Their trained professionals provide free, immediate and confidential help 24/7, 365 days a year. Crested Butte Youth Wellness offers four free counseling sessions for kids between grades 6-12 and CB State of Mind provides 10 free sessions with a local therapist. For peer support specialists at Gunnison Valley Health, email behavioralhealth@gvh-colorado.org or call 970.648.7128. 

(Abby Harrison can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or abby@gunnisontimes.com.)