By CHRIS TOGNERI
BEE STAFF WRITER

Last Updated: March 18, 2007, 04:38:58 AM PDT
GUSTINE — A family was erased from this close-knit small town, but memories of the four slain Branscum children will live on at the schools they once attended.
Friday at Gustine Middle School, about 430 students gathered to honor their lost friends: Aubree, 12; Jacob, 10; and twins Taylor and Alyssa, 5. On the Fourth of July last year, Trevor Branscum, 37, shot and killed his children in a drunken rage as they slept in their beds. He then went to another part of the house, where he shot and killed himself.
In front of a stage decorated with colorful banners and posters made by students, friends took turns reading poems inspired by the Branscum kids.
After the poetry, the donations began. Comcast gave two computers to Gustine Middle School, where Jacob would have joined his older sister this school year, and two to Gustine Elementary School, where the twins would have been students.
The middle school parents club donated a plaque honoring Aubree and Jacob. It will be placed on a bench in the fall, when the school moves to its new campus down the road.
The elementary school parents club will plant two raywood ash trees on campus to provide shade for generations to come.
Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, D-Merced, presented each school with memorial plaques, and Mayor Richard Ford spoke briefly of the town's mourning.
"It's hard, but it's getting better, slowly but surely," Ford said after the ceremony. "It lets you know you're not exempt. It can happen anywhere."
Absent from the ceremony was Amanda Trimble, the Branscum children's mother. She had gone to a friend's after arguing with her husband July 4 and returned home to find her family dead.
She no longer lives in Gustine. But she wrote a letter to the students, which family friend Kim Classen read to the gathering:
"I think of you all daily and hope you are healing and moving on with smiles and laughter. It's what Aubree, Jacob, Taylor and Alyssa want for everyone. … May the trees you plant grow tall and proud with every season, just as they would have.
"I thank all of you and wish that I could be there to honor your friends that were taken from us much too soon. My love and prayers are with you all."