It was interesting walking around the campus of William & Mary today. There was enough orange and maroon to remind me of being in Blacksburg on game day years ago albeit surrounded by red brick and a conspicuous absence of hills. I attended William & Mary’s Virginia Tech Memorial Event which was opened and closed with the Wren bell tolling 33 times, once for each life lost in the shootings. The New York Times posted an article Victims of Shooting Are Remembered (digg Referer) and I have to agree with President Nichol’s opening statement: “So many tolls.”

Besides the colors and the memorial, there were a few other Tech related reminders around campus. The Crim Dell Bridge had Virginia Tech ribbon Banner hanging from it and a few folks had managed to acquire the Virginia Tech fundraiser shirt that the varsity field hockey team and Colonial Sports had begun to print which has a feathered VT logo on the front and on the back of the maroon shirt is printed: “TODAY WE ARE ALL HOKIES” with April 16th, 2007 underneath. The school put up a small photo gallery which has pictures of the shirt.

The William & Mary home page was also changed for today with the normal rotating image replaced with the scene from the candlelit vigil in Blacksburg and the VT Ribbon prominently displayed on the side. James Madison University marked the event by changing the color scheme to orange and maroon from their normal purple and yellow (JMU Web Archive). The University of Virginia’s website featured a large Virginia Tech graphic as well as having a week in photos displaying the Tech related sites in Charlottesville. Naturally web pages at Virginia Tech were changed as well and they had a whole sub site dedicated to the tragedy as well as a their own detailed list of the victims.

Hopefully the healing can begin in Blacksburg especially once classes resume and the media blitz has ended. As curiously different as some of the day’s events were, I hope there is never justification for a day like this again.

Update:

My co-worker and friend Mel Volgelsang manged to take some nice pictures during the event that he allowed me to share. Here is a shot of the stage and one of the banners Willam & Mary is sending to Tech and a picture of the shirt and another. He also took three shots of the crowd exiting the event: picture 1, picture 2, and picture 3. If you are into extreme Where’s Waldo, you can try to find the back of my head in the second picture. Thanks Mel!