Photos by Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

Greg and Karen Gwaltney, parents of Matt Gwaltney, of Chesterfield, Va., hug Dr. Bharat Lohani, one of Matt's professors, during the graduate ceremony at Cassell Coliseum after receiving his posthumous degree.

A graduate student looks through a book that contains profiles of all the victims from the Virginia Tech shooting before the start of the graduate ceremony.

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BLACKSBURG — For Virginia Tech sophomore Mario Huffman, Friday afternoon’s graduate commencement was first and foremost about recognizing the importance of education and taking pride in the accomplishments of loved ones.

And that was the focus of the ceremony, which started at 3 p.m. and stretched on for more than two hours in front of thousands of family and friends in a warm Cassell Coliseum. Many shouted and waved as they saw their graduates march in and again when they received their degrees.

Huffman was there for his uncle, Gerald Millner, who received his master’s degree in education.

“There he is, fourth row from the back, second person in,” he said, pointing down from his seat behind the graduates.

And while Huffman didn’t have to look far to see reminders of the April 16 shootings at his school — from mortarboards with Virginia Tech ribbons to banners lining the halls of Cassell expressing sympathy from schools throughout the country — his focus was on his uncle.

“He’s been a big inspiration to me,” said Huffman, who is from Danville. “He’s one of the few men in our family who went to college and got a degree.”

Huffman has an older brother who’s a senior at Tech and was accompanied Friday by his 12-year-old brother, Evan. He said his uncle plans to stay at Tech to receive a doctorate degree.

Tech President Charles Steger opened commencement by reading a message he received from President Bush hours earlier, praising the students for how they came together after the tragedy that left 33 students and faculty dead at their school.

“We will always remember the lives that were taken, and we hold their families and friends in our hearts,” Steger quoted Bush.
After a few words from Steger about the shooting victims, commencement proceeded in a typical fashion with students cooling themselves by waving their mortarboards, people shifting in their seats, waiting for an end to the speeches so they could receive their degrees.

The tone changed again for about 15 minutes as the names of the nine graduate students killed in the shootings were called. Friends and family members went up one at a time to receive the posthumous degrees, some wiping away tears and exchanging hugs. The crowd cheered after the name of each victim was called.

Huffman said he was glad that time was taken out to pay tribute to the victims — they needed to be recognized for their achievements, too, he said. And anything that could be done to comfort their families was certainly worth it.

But for him, last month’s tragedy didn’t taint a day of celebration.

“You look forward to this day, and it’s a day that’s going to be the same no matter what happens,” he said.