The Montezuma-Cortez Re-1 School District Board voted unanimously Tuesday night to place a chair in the high-school cafeteria to honor a young boy who was shot and killed in December of 2024.
Board member Mike Lynch, who was clearly emotional, read a resolution establishing a memorial in remembrance of Zamias Lang. The 7-year-old was a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and a student in the Re-1 district.
He died when someone shot up the mobile home in Towaoc where he and his father were sleeping. The father was not injured.
Another tribal member, Jeremiah Hight, who was 23 at the time, was later arrested and charged in U.S. District Court in Colorado in the killing. He was indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with one count of second-degree murder of a child and one count of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. His case is still in the court system.
At Tuesday’s school-board meeting, Lynch explained that at the time of the killing, he began thinking that in addition to Lang’s family, the school district would suffer loss.
“We will not ever know what great accomplishments he would make while in school,” Lynch said. “Would he have been a great athlete, play in the band, be in theater?“
He suggested the idea of the memorial to a member of the Ute Mountain Tribal Council and was told he would have to wait a year because of their culture and beliefs Recently, he said, he approached the tribal council again and received permission from them and from Lang’s family.
The memorial is to be a small empty chair painted blue, with a photo of Lang and printed information about him. It is to sit in the high school until Graduation Day 2035, when Lang would have graduated.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Councilperson Tawnie Knight thanked the board for the memorial.
“On behalf of the council, the family, and our education department, thank you for the opportunity to honor one of our tribal members,” she said.
Note: The photo of the chair was provided by the school district.
