The day after a student gunman killed 32 students and professors on the campus of Virginia Tech, thousands more than expected attended a solemn convocation to honor the dead and comfort the grieving.
The day was sunny and mild but very windy as students and guests stood patiently in a line stretching for blocks waiting to try to get a seat in Cassell Coliseum. The coliseum ordinarily seats 10,000, but its capacity was expanded with the addition of chairs on the floor. By shortly after noon it was apparent that not everyone would be admitted. Still the students, most wearing VT colors of orange and burgundy, were subdued by the events of the previous day. All waited patiently, though with a measure of disappointment that they could not get in.
By 1 p.m., police cruisers patrolled the length of the line announcing the overflow would be accommodated in the football stadium. Eventually a crowd estimated at about 20,000 sat in Lane Football Stadium as part of the overflow crowd.
One member of the overflow crowd was Kristen Jones, a Virginia Baptist student who lives on the third floor of West Amber-Johnston Hall where two of the murders occurred on the fourth floor. “I got up early that morning and left the dorm before the gunman arrived,” Jones shared. “I was with a friend at her apartment when I heard the news. My roommate left the building about the same time the killer would have left the building. That kind of freaked her out a little bit. She had a really hard time last night and I sat up with her and talked with her to calm her down.
“It is really scary to think that you haven't heard from some of your friends and you don't know whether they are just not able to answer the phone or whether something may have happened.” Her own circle of friends have all been accounted for.
“I think it will bring the Tech community together in some ways and I think this kind of tragedy has the potential to bring people to some kind of faith—hopefully the Christian faith. I noticed that one of the local news stations had a help line and most of the people who were answering the phones were like missionaries or pastors and that was a comfort to think that people like that were available and that students were calling them. There are people out there trying to turn this into something good.”
Students gathered for the second night in a row at the Baptist collegiate ministries center for worship and encouragement.