Editorial
A national loss

A college campus, which decks out in the orange and the maroon of the Hokie - a wild turkey - on Saturdays during the football season, was shaken to its core on Monday.

Virginia Tech is nearly 700 miles - 12 hours - away from those reading this issue, but the deadly events of Monday hit home for some of us.

It is hard to imagine exactly what was going through the minds of the students, the staff and those on the campus not just Monday but the days afterwards as they struggle to come to grips with this tragedy.

The campus on which the more than 100 buildings are made from a single type of stone - Hokie stone - is a cohesive community giving a small-school feel despite the population of 26,000 students.

Virginia Tech students are feeling shellshocked and empty. They will join a club no one wants to be part of. A club comprised of those who attended Columbine High School in 1999, the University of Texas in 1966 and other schools touched by extreme violence.

While the questions will continue to be raised about what could have been done to protect the 33 people who died on the campus, finding those answers will be the job of school, local and state officials in Blacksburg, Va.

What we can do is make sure that those we love know what they mean to us. Arguments happen, people disagree and people will hurt your feelings, but none of that should prevent us from telling people how we fell about them.

The words need to be said. The words that sometimes stick in our throats because we worry about the commitment they will mean. Make the commitment in the words because it is already made in your heart.

Don't wait until it is too late.

For some of us, the next time we hear the song "The Hokie Pookie" the words will take a different meaning. But all of us, whether or not we have a connection to Virginia Tech, should take a moment to remember the Hokies who lost their lives on Monday, April 16.

- News editor Caitlyn Kelleher, the author of this piece, has a sister attending Virginia Tech.