Saving Sycamore

The Power of Faith, Hope, and Relationships

On September 28, 2016, school counselor Molly Hudgens was in her office at Sycamore Middle School when a fourteen-year-old armed with a semiautomatic handgun and an additional magazine of ammunition came to her in the counseling department. His plan was to kill people on campus. He told Hudgens she was the only person who could talk him out of it. After ninety minutes of talking with the young man, and ultimately praying on her knees with him, he relinquished the gun with no shots fired and no lives lost.

In this memoir, Hudgens shares the story of that day and the thirty-nine years and 364 days leading up to it that prepared her for the best and worst day of her life. Her story is one of triumph over adversity and hope found in the bleakest of moments. As Hudgens walks readers through the incident, she shares how her faith, rapport with the student, and a strong school community guided her efforts and provided a positive outcome that day.

How do you have compassion for a student sitting in your office with a loaded gun and the desire to kill? Saving Sycamore is the remarkable story of a woman whose compassion was stronger than the homicidal rage in the heart of a desperate student.—Peter Langman, PhD, author of School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators; director of Research and School Safety Training, Drift Net Securities

Saving Sycamore illustrates Molly’s leadership, compassion, faith, and vulnerability when the members of her school community needed her most on that fateful day and in the aftermath. This is a book about a faith journey.—Frank DeAngelis, principal of Columbine High School, 1996–2014; author of They Call Me “Mr. De”: The Story of Columbine’s Heart, Resilience, and Recovery

Saving Sycamore is a must-read to learn how God worked to truly save lives at Sycamore Middle School.—Major General William B. Raines, Jr., USA (retired); Charles H. Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center Executive Board