The Hokie bird and another observer comfort a crying young man (middle) kneeling before wreaths and stones at the April 16, 2007 Memorial following the ceremony marking the eleventh Day of Remembrance.
Birds were singing, but it was cold at 9:43 a.m. Monday, as Virginia Tech bowed its head and laid wreaths to remember the 32 victims killed and the 17 injured in the 2007 mass shooting.
A wreath of white lilies and chrysanthemums and an eternal flame lit at midnight as the school entered a 24-hour vigil, stood below Burrus Hall below the Drillfield observation podium ringed by 32 Hokie stone markers, each carrying the name of a victim.
In somber overcoats, President Timothy Sands, 16th president of the university, and wife, Dr. Laura Sands, Provost Cyril Clarke and about a hundred students, parents, emergency response crews, cadets, faculty and staff bowed their heads for a moment of reflection at 9:43 a.m., marking the time shootings began.
In the stormy April wind, as the Sands’ and Clarke moved from stone to stone, a young man had knelt at the center stone, head bowed and weeping.
Reaching him, the leaders paused at the stone, recognized the victim, and then touched the man’s shoulder as they moved on. Dr. Sands put her hand on his head.
In the hours and days following the shooting, makeshift memorials appeared throughout campus, mounds of flowers and toys.
Ultimately, the April 16 memorial was established at the base of the observation platform below Burrus Hall, the university’s neo-Gothic main administration building.
As the remembrance ceremony drew to a close, a number of people paused to sit with or comfort the crying man. Above the quiet crowd, from the hill at Burrus with a view the buildings and students streaming across the grassy Drillfield, a young enthusiastic VT ambassador walking backwards led a crowd of prospective students touring the campus.
Then the sun came out.
