In Remembrance: Virginia Tech

With Governor Kaine’s declaration of today as a statewide day of morning, the entire Commonwealth of Virginia, and perhaps the entire nation and global community, remembered the lives lost earlier this week on the Virginia Tech campus.

As a family living and working in Virginia, the connections to Virginia Tech were surprisingly close – professional colleagues, and children of friends and fellow church members who were on the Blacksburg campus at the time of the shooting. Others – my oldest son, his friends, friends of my other children – who had lived in the West Amber Johnson dormitory or who have since graduated from Tech, but remain a part of the tight knit Hokie Family.

As a parent who delivered his first born son to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg for a four-year education and experience, I was always amazed at the values resident and practiced in that community – respect, integrity, honor, and dedication to education, to excellence, and to service. While Virginia Tech is, by any standard, a large university – in its geographic size and reach, in its number and diversity of students, in its educational breadth - the Hokie Community always remained focused on the growth, education, and needs of each individual member. Those values and characteristics make the tragic events of this past Monday so unexpected and unbelievable.

We remember in our thoughts and prayers all who were killed, injured, or impacted in anyway through the events at Virginia Tech this week, as well as all those throughout the world impacted in any way by hate and violence.

Two photos: the Virginia Tech banner on a field of Hokie stone and happier times for the Hokie Community with the pomp and circumstance of the 2000 Graduation.