3:00 p.m.: Tech Softball Park, campus


The mood at the Hokies softball field is much like any other game day - the stands awash in maroon and orange, the loudspeaker blasting songs by Sugarland and Aerosmith, sunny skies prompting girls to bare their shoulders to avoid t-shirt tan lines.


The Hokies are preparing to play the Liberty Flames, who present 32 flowers to their competitors at the start of the game.


Over the loudspeaker blares Metallica's "Enter Sandman," now synonymous with Hokie Sports. Feet start stomping, the stands vibrate, pride swells. This is Hokie Nation, after all.

3 p.m., Tech Softball Park, Virginia Tech

Last April 16, Theresa Walsh had a bullet whiz past her ear in Norris Hall.

The 2007 Tech graduate and former Hokie softball player returned to campus to watch her ex-teammates play Liberty University in a doubleheader.

"It's tough coming back, but it feels good at the same time to have people support you," said Walsh, a Blacksburg resident. "There's certain things as a person, to finish the grieving process, that you have to do. This is one of the things I have to do. I have to come back and be able to watch the team and know that we're moving forward.

"This morning, I was a train wreck. This afternoon, I'm a little bit better."

Sites around Christiansburg


"We will prevail. We are VT. April 16."


The words on a sign in front of Cambria Baptist Church.


And on the sign at the Christiansburg Presbyterian Church: "Multiply peace."


In Christiansburg today, people went about their business in town, many of them wearing Hokie shirts and caps or orange and maroon ribbons attached to their suits.


Orange and maroon ribbons decorated the doors of the First National Bank. Wreaths of Hokie-colored flowers graced the town hall. The Virginia flag flew at half-staff in front of the courthouse.

2:45 p.m., Outside the Haymarket Theatre, Virginia Tech

With 15 minutes until showtime, the line outside the Haymarket Theatre filled the entire lobby of Squires Student Center. This was the buzz among the waiters: "It's full."

A woman's voice, an official, quieted the crowd. She announced she had a list of reserved seats for dancers' families. "Otherwise, we are at capacity and we have no seats."

Meanwhile, students behind a counter were selling hip scarves, velvet sashes with metallic coins that jingle. The money goes toward Reema Samaha's Middle Eastern dance memorial fund. One woman bought an elaborate dangly gold necklace. "I want to help the cause," she said.

2:30 p.m. Eakin and Main streets, Blacksburg

Tom Quigley, a fifth-year architecture

student, figured the best way to remember April 16 was with friends. And enjoy the beautiful day.

Photos and audio by Amy Matkze | The Roanoke Times

2:15 p.m., War Memorial Chapel, Virginia Tech

On the sunny Drillfield outside, students lay on blankets and tossed footballs. Inside the sanctuary, a pianist tickled the keys, producing slow, somber tones on the black baby grand.

Wreaths and lit candles stood in front of the cool, gray walls of the sanctuary stage. A few lone souls sat on the maroon cushioned seats, silent and reflecting. Some stayed just moments and stepped out into the day, quiet as ghosts. Some sat with their thoughts for a long time.

All the while, the piano kept playing.

Submitted by Erinn Hutkin | The Roanoke Times

2:04 p.m., Alumni Museum, Inn at Virginia Tech

Name: Robert and Elizabeth Heatwole
Hometown: Oak Grove

Robert Heatwole, 73, a 1958 Virginia Tech alum and his wife, Elizabeth came to Blacksburg today to attend the commemoration events and the softball game. Before the game, they stopped by the alumni museum at the Inn at Virgina Tech to view memorial items from culled from the April 16 archive.

"The potential for those 32 people was just unbelievable," Robert Heatwole said.

The Heatwoles also viewed a memorial slideshow at the Inn, which Heatwole called powerful.

WVTF, the Roanoke-based, Virginia Tech-affiliated public radio station, played seven hours of specially selected music between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Music director Seth Williamson read the names of the Virginia Tech dead before playing music that ranged in tone from sad and solemn to hopeful and triumphal.

Among the selections: Estonian composer Arvo Part's "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten," Brooklyn-born Jennifer Higdon's "Blue Cathedral" and the third symphony of Aaron Copland, the American composer perhaps best known for "Appalachian Spring."

"It's a very cathartic piece," said Williamson of the symphony ‑ one that leaves the listener with a sense "that one way or another, we'll prevail."

2 p.m., Drillfield, Virginia Tech

They lay down on the grass of the Drillfield, roughly halfway between the places where two groups of victims laid one year ago in Norris and West Ambler-Johnston halls.

In silence, the 50-some protestors stayed down for three minutes, about the time they said it takes to buy a gun.

Unlike the other vigils and ceremonies held on campus and around the region to mark the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, this one did more than commemorate the dead – it appealed to the living to do something about the ease with which guns are purchased in America.

2 p.m., near Peddrew-Yates Residence Hall, Virginia Tech

Name: Roderick Neal
Age: 42
Hometown: Bluefield, W.Va.
Occupation: Doctoral student in sociology, Virginia Tech

Roderick Neal intended to complete his PhD in sociology as quickly as possible and move on. Neal now considers himself a “proud Hokie” who never anticipated owning so many orange-colored clothes.

Submitted by Duncan Adams | The Roanoke Times