I remember it better than any day I’ve ever lived.
I woke up and I had this feeling that it was going to be a weird day. Blacksburg was windier than usual, and it was dark and dreary. I was doing a contract job up the street in Roanoke, and I went into work anyway after thinking about calling in sick.
I was talking on IM with a few people who said there was a bomb scare. It didn’t mean much to me because there was one a few days before. I thought it some prank. Then I read .
I rushed to campus right away. I remember talking with Sky News on the phone on my way to campus. I remember ignoring phone calls from major news organizations early in the day so I could help my fellow students grieve and find information at the same time.
We turned a classroom into a newsroom.
Roland Lazenby was our media writing professor, and he urged us to make phone calls to the police and the hospital. This wasn’t a fire drill, it was the real thing. All the time he spent teaching us about timelines and accuracy was coming into play. At this time, we didn’t know any names of the victims, so we just kept publishing stories and reading comments.
At about 4:00 p.m., I got an IM from Mike Buck, one of my best friends in the Marching Band. He told me that our buddy Stack was one of the victims. I kinda had this disbelief after I read it, but it was too real to ignore. I wrote this blog post about Stack right away. In my search today for photos of Stack, I came up empty, but I did find a video. He is on the far left, dancing with the tones:
I always think “uhhhhhhh… did he really have to die?”
Stack was the funniest guy to be around. He was overly flamboyant, but that’s what made him awesome. You could not not be his friend. He was a leader, he was a role model, and most of all, he was a caring soul. He was shot trying to help someone else. What amazes me is that his virtual self still lives on.
People tag him in notes and photos, and his wall is huge.
It’s cool that the internet allows us to still “interact” with these lost souls. I really miss Stack, and if I want, I can go look at his profile, and see what pictures people have tagged of him.
I vividly remember going to the candlelight vigil with Courtney Thomas. So many people showed up and it was surreal.
There was a powerful speech that night.
I remember the fountain of reporters at the Virginia Tech Inn. And how I hated them for getting in the students faces.
I remember the hundreds of corkboards with messages for the victims.
I remember the drillfield flowers.
I remember not wanting to look at the list of victims to see if I knew anybody else. I remember Julia Pryde.
I remember the moment that I found out the killer sent photos and videos to the media.
It’s hard to think back to one year ago. I know that Planet Blacksburg did a great job of reporting the events from the student’s eye. That’s very important. Roland and a few others wrote a book about 4/16, and I after reading it, I was really touched.
I’m in San Francisco now, and I am prouder than ever to wear my orange and maroon. Months after the shootings, I felt like I was reminding people about a tragedy. The last 1% of my college career was tragic, but the other 99% of Virginia Tech that I remember was amazing.
Just like Professor Giovanni said, “we will prevail”.
