About This Website

This website has been put together by an alumnus of Virginia Tech (class of 1984, Civil Engineering) as a means to commemorate the 32 students and faculty members whose lives were lost on 4-16-07. This commemoration is primarily aimed at the greater Virginia Tech community (the "Hokie Nation") as a way to honor and preserve the memories of those killed in this senseless tragedy.

The general inspiration for the website is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, which is an extremely powerful and moving memorial to the U.S. soldiers killed during that war. I tried to recreate that feeling through this website, beginning with the virtual "Wall of Faces" (a montage of all the victims faces framed by "Hokie stone") that serves as the gateway page to the main website, followed by the "Remembering the Victims" gateway page where visitors seeking to view a personal remembrance page for a particular person must first click on their photo to access it.

At the present time, the personal remembrance pages include materials gleaned from major media news sources, namely photos along with profile stories on each victim put forth by four key newspapers - the local Roanoke Times, the New York Times, USA Today and the Washington Post - along with the professional news-magazine The Chronicle of Higher Education and Virginia Tech's own Alumni Magazine, each of which captures a particular slice of that person's life. In some cases, additional profile stories were found (mainly obtained from the victim's hometown newspaper) that warranted inclusion as well. Finally, weblinks to both audio and video remembrances (mainly from NPR, CNN and YouTube) are provided when found. I hope to add more accounts from other sources in the future, if and when possible.

In closing, I only wish that I could offer some magic words of comfort to the families, friends and colleagues of the victims of this senseless tragedy. Instead, I can only offer my deepest condolences and hope that you find some solace in the remembrances included on this website.

And to the greater "Hokie Nation," I offer below the inspiring words of Nikki Giovanni, the renown poet, activist and University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech, as given at the convocation held at Virginia Tech two days after the tragedy occurred, in a piece entitled "We are Virginia Tech" (CNN video of her speech):

We are Virginia Tech;

We are sad today;

And we will be sad for quite awhile

We are NOT moving on

We are embracing our mourning

We are Virginia Tech

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly

And are brave enough to then cry

And we are sad enough to know

We must laugh again

We are Virginia Tech

We do not understand this tragedy

We know we did nothing to deserve it

No one deserves a tragedy

We are Virginia Tech

The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds

We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid

We are better than we think

And not quite what we want to be

We are alive to the imagination and the possibilities

We will continue to invent the future

Through our blood and tears

Through all this sadness

We are the Hokies

We will prevail

We will prevail

We will prevail

We ARE Virginia Tech.