An April 16th memorial was dedicated at Virginia Tech this past weekend. I've attached a link to their website, as well as a link to the stories in the New York Times and Washington Post. I'm not sure if there are other local papers with stories, but I figured I'd just start with this.
And here is a brief description of the memorial and ceremony from The Chronicle of Higher Education (08/20/07):
Four months after last April's tragic shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, the university solemnly dedicated a memorial on Sunday to honor the students and professors who were killed.
More than 10,000 people gathered on the Drillfield before the new memorial, a semicircle of 32 stones, one for each of the victims. Each of the 300-pound stones -- of the same gray limestone used for many of the buildings on the Blacksburg, Va., campus -- has the name of a student or professor engraved on it.
"We have etched their names into the foundation of this great university," said Zenobia L. Hikes, vice president of student affairs, the ceremony's opening speaker.
The individual stones surround a larger central stone that honors people who were wounded in the shootings as well as the slain. In the stone are carved seven words: "We Will Prevail. We Are Virginia Tech." A Virgina Tech professor and poet, Nikki Giovanni, uttered those words at the close of an emotional speech she gave at a convocation the day after the shootings.
The new memorial is a permanent version of a temporary shrine created by a student service group in the first 24 hours following the April 16 tragedy. The group, Hokies United, placed 32 smaller stones in an arc that became a gathering spot for the grief-stricken.
The new stones are in the same place as the original ones, which were given to relatives and other representatives of those slain as part of the ceremony that ended with the tolling of a bell 32 times. Afterward, as the hymn "Amazing Grace" played in the background, family members walked toward the memorial. They were the first to get a closer look.
In remarks during the ceremony, Charles W. Steger, president of Virginia Tech, said those killed will "forever be a part of the Virginia Tech family." Mr. Steger talked of how the campus was "still deeply saddened by the collective nightmare of April 16th," but, like the speakers before him, he highlighted the actions of the campus community in the tragedy's aftermath.
"The spirit and resiliency of the Virginia Tech community have amazed the world," Mr. Steger said.
Yet another thing to add to the list of "Things I should have posted a long time ago..."
