VIRGINIA TECH

It's all just so surreal. Really I was numb.

On late Monday morning when I first found out about the shootings at Virginia Tech my mind quickly raced to all the people that I know who work there. Whether it was Dave Smith, B.J., Torye Hurst or Reggie Brown in the VT athletic department or Dave Kingston, the pastor of the church I went to when I was at Radford, who was a professor at the university. Thankfully all were unharmed.

While I did not go to VT, I spent countless times there with friends tossing baseball around the drill field or covering a Hokies sporting event for the local newspaper. It is beautiful campus in one of the most peaceful areas of the state (and country for that matter). In so many ways it is a sheer travesty what has happened.

The people of the New River Valley are some of the kindness and most gracious people I have ever come in contact with. Now there amazing community has been tarnished forever by this act violence. I've walked by that dorm and academic building were the shootings occurred on numerous occasions and when I go back to visit, it just won't be the same. Why? Just Why?

If nothing else, what Monday's events in SW Virginia taught us is - "you can not control how you die or when you die but you can control how you live." (Erwin McManus)