Audio Slide Show

Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

• Watch and listen to university archivist Tamara Kennelly describe how the tributes were assembled

Where to see displays of tributes

• Perspective Gallery, second floor of Squires Student Center, will be showing a display of some of the items sent to Tech. “April 16: Remembrance, Recognition, Healing” will be on display until April 20. The gallery will host a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday.
• The Holtzman Alumni Center will display 70 to 100 items from the archives from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. April 16.
• The Lyric Theatre will host a performance art event at 3 p.m. April 13.

Related

• Fifteen students in a Virginia Tech honors course also are archiving relics related to the April 16 shootings.

BLACKSBURG -- A race car hood. A painting of doves. A letter from the White House. A wooden horse head.

They're all items that have made their way to Virginia Tech in the past year with the same basic message.

"We're sorry and we support you."

University archivist Tamara Kennelly has been working on organizing the items since summer. More than 87,000 letters, posters, photos and other expressions of support have come to Tech from around the world. Many of them have been signed by hundreds of people. Kennelly said it all adds up to more than a million people wishing the university well in the wake of April 16, when Tech student Seung-Hui Cho fatally shot 32 students and faculty members in two attacks on campus before killing himself.

"This collection is an expression of what happened here at Virginia Tech, but also this kind of incredible outpouring from around the world of people responding to us," she said.

In a plain white room in a nondescript building in Virginia Tech's Corporate Research Center, Kennelly and her staff of five -- all current or former Tech students -- work on organizing the items and placing them in boxes where they can be preserved. The space is dubbed the Prevail Archives. They'll eventually find their way from there into the university library's special collections section, where visitors will be able to check them out for viewing. It may be hard to realize now, but the world's response to the April 16 shootings is a part of history, Kennelly said.

But for Kennelly, who's been at Tech since 1993, it's impossible for her to remove herself from that history.

"Even now after working here since last summer, I still -- it still can break me up," she said. "It's tough sometimes."

Tech junior Eric Norris is working with Kennelly to create a database so people can access descriptions of the items as well as photos. The searchable database is a work in progress but is available through scholar.lib.vt.edu/416_archive.

The database allows people to quickly check through the vast collection, view items and ask questions such as, "Did Northern Illinois University send something to Tech after the April 16 shootings?" It did. Students at the school sent a banner that reads, "Our Thoughts and Prayers are With You," and includes hundreds of signatures.

While the outpouring of support from the world of higher education isn't surprising to Kennelly, the wide range of people who identified with the tragedy is. Several tributes were sent by people from Asian countries. A kite from the Drew University Korean Caucus leans against a wall. Tens of thousands of origami cranes -- a Japanese symbol of peace -- fill boxes. There are letters from Japanese students who are just learning English: "We must never happen murder. We must be more friendly."

Prison inmates sent several messages, including a drawing of the victims with a note from Samuel S. Holliday, an inmate at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarrett.

"I was compelled to do something out of the pain and hurt I felt for the loss of the parents whose initial shock must have been devastating. I came across an article in The Richmond Times covering the story and the faces of the victims were present. And that became the something I decided to do."

Many of the messages include mentions of tragedies in the lives of the writers. A student from Englewood, Calif., recounted how his best friend was recently killed in a drive-by shooting. Another from Flint, Mich., wrote about how a student was killed in a shooting there on April 16.

"My school's a pretty crazy place to live," he wrote. "People kill people around here for the most stupidest things. But my city is a very poor city. It's all about money around here. But anyways, I hope nothing like that happens ever again at your school. ... All you can do is hope, just hope and pray no more shooting happen at school."

"To me this is so amazing that people who are living in this situation still felt moved that they wanted to write to us and express their sympathy," Kennelly said. "It's pretty incredible."

Types of tributes

Virginia Tech received tens of thousands of items from people around the world after April 16. Here is a list of approximate numbers of the kinds of tributes received.

Angels 2,517

Banners 1,924

Blankets 34

Books 317

Bracelets 1,036

CDs 67

Cassettes 5

Cranes 41,520

Crosses 83

Drawings 174

DVDs and VHS tapes 32

Flags 21

Handmade items 540

Hats 26

Letters, cards, notes 35,025

Memory books 344

Newspapers 149

Pennants 7

Photographs 440

Pieces of clothing 12

Poetry 339

Posters 1,313

Resolutions 21

Ribbons 179

Stuffed animals 91

T-shirts 85

Total 86,350