I had to turn off the TV.  It was literally making me ill.

Such a horrible thing is such a beautiful place.

Jo

It is sad.. just so sad..

When I heard about itt earlier, I just heard about the shooting in the dorm.  
That was sad enough, but now, on the evening news, I'm hearing about the
attack in the classroom building.  Terrible, just terrible and terribly sad.  
It is so hard to imagine stuff like this happening in Balcksburg.

My niece, Ginny is a student at Virginia Tech.  She is fine.  However, she
knows quite a few engineering students.  She works in one of the engineering
school's offices.  Her routine takes her through the building where the
second shooting happened.  She related that she started to enter the
building when the police yelled at her to leave, which she did.
My sister (her mother) said she was quite shaken, but is fine.  Please, pray
for the families of the victims as well as the whole Virginia Tech
community.

and so am I....   but the way people are today,,,,, the girl friend will be
on the morning shows to tell everyone all about the what's and whys.   I
will not be there to watch.   Someone needs to find out why the collage
security did not do more,,,faster.
    Our society is having a hard time gearing up for people that go off the
deep end or for the real fact that terrorists hate our way of life and 9-11
proved that finally even though it was the second attempts on those
buildings and I am not sure how many moves have been made by them on our way
of life.

Harv

I am there with you too Diane, I  feel the same. Such a sad thing to happen.
My prayers are with the students, teachers and their families too.

Ditto...I cannot imagine the nightmare they are living..Prayers for all of
them... And Prayers for all the parents who have children in School....I
know you think they are safe there...I cannot imagine your fear.
Cindy

Transcription of Nikki Giovanni's Convocation address
Delivered April 17, 2007

We are Virginia Tech.

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving
on, we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend
to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but
neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible
children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army,
neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devestated for
ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does
the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the
home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because
the land was destabilized. 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 imaginations and the possibilities. We will
continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all
our sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech.

Mary Margaret Wilson