Virginia Tech Massacre: With classes cancelled, decisions to stay loom

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Much of Tuesday night's emotional candlelight vigil focused on healing and moving forward as a community. But as Virginia Polytechnic Institute students dispersed from the service, they faced a more immediate, practical question: With classes canceled through the end of the week, what to do with all their time?

About 70 percent of the school comes from in-state, and it seems that most of them will be going home to decompress from the trauma of the last few days.

Some, however, prefer to stay at school with grieving classmates.

"If I were to go home, I would be alone, and I don't want to be alone," junior Kathryn White said just before she left the vigil. "I want to be with people who are going through what I'm going through, will give me a hug when I need a hug."

Standing to White's left, her friend Kate McAdams added, "By going home, it's almost like you're running away."

White and McAdams both row on Virginia Tech women's crew team, and they said that about ten of their 21 teammates had decided to return home.

"One of the girls had three TAs and a professor die, so she's pretty shaken up and just needed to go home," said teammate Kim Elliot, also standing with them.

The three made clear that they "completely" understood their teammates' decisions to leave and harbored no bitterness; they simply preferred to cope by being around their team at school.

Chatting quietly with friends just a few feet away, freshman Jaryck Daigle said he could barely stand the pain of being on campus.

"I haven't wanted to be here, but I lost a good friend, so I want to be here for all my other friends," he said, vigil candle in hand.

The friend he was referring to was Ryan Clark, a fifth-year senior who played with Daigle on the Virginia Tech marching band.

"He was one of the first people I ever met at Tech," Daigle said. "He would put anybody before himself."

On Monday morning, Daigle was just leaving class from a building across Drillfield from Norris Hall, where most of the shooting was, when he heard gunfire. He said he and everyone around him immediately dropped to the ground. When he ran back inside, he was able to see people jumping off the roof of the building across from Norris.

Originally from nearby Christianburg, Daigle says he plans to visit a friend a few hours away in Winchester, Va. He was also considering a trip up to Boston.

"Seeing the campus this dead, quiet, it's scary to imagine. Our campus, you know, this is our home," he said.

Most people, like Daigle, have left town. U.S. Highway 81 out of Blacksburg was filled yesterday with cars sporting Virginia Tech logos and signs, including one with "Honk for Hokies" painted in orange on the rear window.

Sitting in the stands of a packed Cassell Coliseum for Tuesday's Convocation ceremony, sophomore Brandon Stumpf said he would be heading home to Richmond.

Campus is "going to be dead after tomorrow," he said.

He knows, though, that even arriving back in Richmond won't be a complete escape.

"I'm afraid when I go home. My mom warned me, you are going to get a lot of questions," he said.

Daigle is less concerned about the constant questioning - he says the media onslought has already acclimated him to the attention.

"I'm prepared to face that for a while," he said. "I mean, I've had three reporters call me in the past couple days. One from Good Morning America, one from the Today show, and it's just - it's insane."

Eventually, though, classes will resume. And even after having been granted a few days to clear their heads, students will be forced to return to campus and once again confront the tragedy.

"This has been my home for my whole life," Daigle said, "and to have something this big happen, is just, I don't how to handle it."

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