Aggies hold Virginia Tech vigil
Candles and music replaced the celebratory surroundings of the Associated Students of USU inauguration Friday night in the Taggart Student Center Ballroom for a memorial for the fallen students and faculty of Virginia Tech.
The night included 33 candles being lit and 33 quotes read, written by USU students giving what they thought would help Virginia Tech students cope.
“Now is the time for reflection. Look around you right now. Look at these 33 candles that are lit. Take a good long look and ask yourself how would you feel if the person holding that candle is no longer there. How would you mourn, and how would you ever recover?” said Nick West, newly inducted ASUSU humanities arts and social sciences senator.
West talked about the distance of Virginia Tech, 2,000 miles away, which would make it easy for students to become disillusioned.
“It would be too easy for us to turn away and say it’s so far away it doesn’t happen here,” West said. “But it’s not far away, and we realize it’s not far away. It doesn’t matter would it have happened on the other side of the world, or if it happened at our back door; our support is with you all.”
A group of Virginia Tech students were on campus for a competition and attended the memorial before their awards ceremony.
“It’s really hard to find words to explain it. All of us have been affected in some way,” said a visiting Virginia Tech student. “It was really just an unlucky day. Thank you so much for this. It really means a lot to us. Thank you.”
Assistant English professor Christopher Cokinos read a poem he wrote from the perspective of the desks in the classroom, saying: “The desks at which they learned to speak. The desks are splintered. The desks are piled by the door. They wished they’d had legs that ran, arms that could have carried friends, but the desks are spindly, and sorry. They are very sad.”
The poem went on to address how after being stored in a closet for many years, the desks would speak, and “they will weep. They will weep. They will weep,” Cokinos said.
“I think of the season we are in, April and springtime and a time of renewal and regrowth, which is a reminder that as we grieve, we are alive. And if we are alive, we have a special duty to keep memory alive and learn from our mistakes,” Cokinos said.
“And so I ask each of you tonight to dedicate yourself to at least one action, one thing that you might do that might help prevent such a tragedy, and I leave it to your conscience to decide what that might be,” he added.
After the memorial was concluded, a student performed a song she had composed.
USU President Stan Albrecht was not able to attend the memorial, and ASUSU President Noah Riley conducted and gave a few remarks.
Riley talked about not becoming daunted by fear and related the Virginia Tech massacre to the USU van crash of 2005.
“I’m deeply touched by the fearlessness of Robbie Petersen and Jared and Amy Nelson who survived the tragic van accident associated with our wonderful university. They have come back to Utah State and have come to add to the legacy which they had already begun on our campus,” Riley said.
Friday was the eight-year anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting. Riley also related what Virginia Tech did to push fear away.
“Fearlessness was ultimately exemplified when thousands of Virginia Tech Hokies gathered to memorialize their fallen classmates and faculty and chanted, ‘Hokies, Hokies.’ And so today we stand with our family and friends of Virginia Tech and say we are all Hokies. And tomorrow we will move forward, say come what may, because fear cannot keep us from claiming a brighter future,” Riley said.
-ranaebang@cc.usu.edu