2008 Woodie Awards
A 'somber' campus deals with emotional aftermath
By Jason Schwartz, Daily Pennsylvanian via U-WIRE
Issue date: 4/13/07 Section: News
Originally published: 4/16/07 at 5:55 PM EST
Last update: 4/18/07 at 5:42 PM EST
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Daily Pennsylvanian (U. Penn)
(U-WIRE) BLACKSBURG, Va. - The day after the most brutal attack ever to take place on an American college campus, Virginia Tech students struggled to come to grips with their new reality.
And though the student body largely remained in shock, there is still no doubt that things are different.
"For the first time ever here, I walked outside and the darkness actually scared me," sophomore Mike Woods said of the evening after the shootings.
Woods was walking out of his dorm for class on Monday morning when his girlfriend called. Screaming into the phone, she said, "I hear gunshots; there's SWAT teams on the Drill Field; what's going on?"
Woods rushed to the Drill Field -- just in front of Norris Hall, where the majority of shooting occurred -- and grabbed his girlfriend before returning to his dorm.
"Right now, everybody's still in shock," Woods said. "It doesn't even seem like anybody's accepted that this happened."
Despite having 26,000 students, Virginia Tech maintains a tight-knit community, and students say hardly anyone did not know somebody who was directly affected by the tragedy.
"You're going to know someone, either by them being in one of your classes or through a friend or something," said junior Hope Hudock, standing on Drill Field in front of a memorial signing board in the shape of a Virginia Tech logo. "It's going to hit everyone once all the names [of the dead] come out."
With that list of names trickling in, students remained on edge waiting for news of friends, classmates and professors. Cell phone lines were down for most of Monday and parts of Tuesday, making communication difficult.
As of midday Tuesday, freshman Andrew Stephens still was unsure if all his friends were alright. He said he was still trying to get in contact with five, and he made sure to be one of the first in line for the convocation ceremony, believing that a roll call of the dead would be read out at the service and that he would finally be able to find out which of his friends had died.
(U-WIRE) BLACKSBURG, Va. - The day after the most brutal attack ever to take place on an American college campus, Virginia Tech students struggled to come to grips with their new reality.
And though the student body largely remained in shock, there is still no doubt that things are different.
"For the first time ever here, I walked outside and the darkness actually scared me," sophomore Mike Woods said of the evening after the shootings.
Woods was walking out of his dorm for class on Monday morning when his girlfriend called. Screaming into the phone, she said, "I hear gunshots; there's SWAT teams on the Drill Field; what's going on?"
Woods rushed to the Drill Field -- just in front of Norris Hall, where the majority of shooting occurred -- and grabbed his girlfriend before returning to his dorm.
"Right now, everybody's still in shock," Woods said. "It doesn't even seem like anybody's accepted that this happened."
Despite having 26,000 students, Virginia Tech maintains a tight-knit community, and students say hardly anyone did not know somebody who was directly affected by the tragedy.
"You're going to know someone, either by them being in one of your classes or through a friend or something," said junior Hope Hudock, standing on Drill Field in front of a memorial signing board in the shape of a Virginia Tech logo. "It's going to hit everyone once all the names [of the dead] come out."
With that list of names trickling in, students remained on edge waiting for news of friends, classmates and professors. Cell phone lines were down for most of Monday and parts of Tuesday, making communication difficult.
As of midday Tuesday, freshman Andrew Stephens still was unsure if all his friends were alright. He said he was still trying to get in contact with five, and he made sure to be one of the first in line for the convocation ceremony, believing that a roll call of the dead would be read out at the service and that he would finally be able to find out which of his friends had died.
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