Finding Kinship in Chaos

Prologue: On July 4, 2022, at 10:14 a.m., a gunman killed seven people during Highland Park, Illinois’ Independence Day parade. Forty-eight others were injured by bullets or shrapnel.

KIM GOLDSMITH ’00 ducked and escaped into Walker Bros. Original Pancake House. She kept running until she found herself in the manager’s office. Thinking she might pass out, she lay down on the floor and put her feet up on a desk.

Still breathing heavily but starting to focus, she noticed a dog watching her. He had blood on his face. Not all over. Just a little bit on his white fur above one eyebrow.

It wasn’t his blood.

She looked up and saw a man sitting on a desk across from her. The dog belonged to him.

Kim Goldsmith ’00, Jeff Korman ’77, and Jeff’s dog, Max.

The man was talking. Something about a charger. He needed a charger for his phone. She happened to have one. She might need it, she thought, although maybe she should give it to this man.

They started talking. The man was Jeff. His dog was Max.

Kim didn’t know what had happened to her younger sister, Ashlee, who’d been sitting in front of her on a bench. Was she hurt? Or dead? She tried calling her brother-in-law. He didn’t pick up. It was maybe 30 minutes later when she heard from Ashlee. She’d been shot. In the hand.

AFTER THE LULL

A special education teacher in South Korea for the U.S. Department of Defense, Kim spends her summers in Chicago with her dad. She’d eaten at that restaurant in Highland Park, Illinois, two days earlier when her family celebrated her dad’s 70th birthday.

The morning of July 4, Kim debated on whether to go to the hometown parade. She was working on a second master’s degree and struggling through a lot of homework. However, her best friend from childhood would be marching. Plus, Kim loves a good parade.

Quietly leaving the house to not wake her dad, she drove the seven minutes and was shocked to find a space in the parking garage beneath the pancake house, as the underground garage was at the center of the parade.

Kim saw her sister right away. Ashlee was sitting on a circular bench in front of Walker Bros., holding her friend’s 2-year-old on her lap. Her 5-year-old son and her friend’s son, also 5, were standing in front. It was crowded, so Kim stood behind the bench. Her sister turned around, saw her, and waved for her to come up front, but she didn’t want to get in their way, so she stayed where she was.

The parade started a few minutes later. Kim saw the mayor, the high school band, and the horses. Then there was a lull, and she heard what she thought were fireworks.

It was gunshots.

DOOR TO SAFETY

“This is all in a split second, right?” Kim said. “There’s a bit of a fog here. I remember people, like, what I thought maybe were dropping to the ground on their stomachs, like kind of getting down.

“It was silent. Everything went silent.

“I remember thinking, ‘Squat. Don’t lie on the ground. Bullets ricochet.’ When I ducked, I happened to be behind that bench. The second thing that kicked in was the school training where they’re always saying get into an enclosed indoor inside room without windows.

“So I turned and I saw the restaurant, and I ran in. In my head, it’s a very short run. When you stand there, in reality, and I’ve gone back a million times, it’s actually quite a dash.

“They have a revolving door, and I remember looking up and thinking, ‘I don’t remember they had a shattered door.’ I didn’t connect that a gun had just shattered the glass.”

MIAMI MEMORIES

Jeff Korman ’77 figures he must have been standing near Kim. He’d bent down to pour water in a Starbucks cup for Max when he heard the shots. He and Max rushed into Walker Bros. seconds before Kim.

“Being in that restaurant, that was my safe place,” said Kim Goldsmith ’00. “The outside was terrifying. That’s where bullets were. That’s where my sister was shot. Employees at the restaurant did so much for us.”

Gregg Rollins ’08 with his 4-year-old son, and Jeff Korman ’77.

They joined many others taking refuge inside the restaurant.

While in the office with Kim, Jeff noticed a younger man leaning against a walk-in cooler in the next room. He was with his 4-year-old son and wife, who looked to be about 8 months pregnant. The man was wearing a battered gray baseball cap with a white M bordered in blue.

Jeff, an entrepreneur in the apparel business, walked over to the younger man, and said, “I like your hat. You’ve got the right shaped M, but you’ve got it in the wrong color. What is that? Michigan?”

“No, it’s Miami University,” said the younger man, Gregg Rollins ’08, customer communications manager at Bimbo Bakeries USA in Chicago.

“Seriously!?”

The two alumni started talking Miami sports.

Jeff: “Were you there for Roethlisberger?”

Gregg: “No, I missed him by a year.”

Jeff: “What about Wally Szczerbiak?”

Gregg: “No, I missed him by a few more years.”

Jeff: “That’s OK. I was back in the days of Sherman Smith and Rob Carpenter.”

They chatted awhile longer. Then Jeff returned to the office with Max in his arms. “That was really weird,” he told Kim. “Of all places, I meet an alum of Miami University, where I went to school.”

“I went to Miami, too!” Kim told him.

Being in Oxford at different times didn’t matter. Sharing their memories of Miami was calming — a poignant moment during a nightmarish day.

APPRECIATE YOUR LIFE

To try to deal with their trauma, Kim, Jeff, and Max met up many times in Highland Park throughout the rest of the summer. Gregg was too busy with his new baby girl, although he did run into Jeff in passing.

Although the pain and memories should lessen with time, Jeff says he doesn’t want to be a victim. He wants to be a voice, reminding others to appreciate life, as it can change in a split second.

“Gregg and I talked. All we want people to know out of all of it is, don’t think it can’t happen where you live because it did, so just be aware of your surroundings and appreciate your family, appreciate your life experiences, appreciate that you went to Miami. And Love and Honor everybody around you.”

Epilogue: Jeff, Kim, and Gregg are discussing a possible Miami University scholarship for Highland Park students in memory of the victims.

Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96 is editor of Miamian.

Sharing their memories of Miami was calming — a poignant moment during a nightmarish day.