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11:59 p.m., Drillfield, Virginia Tech

With trumpeters solemnly playing Taps, the memorial candle on the Tech Drillfield was extinguished at midnight. While the Drillfield saw thousands of mourners and onlookers throughout the day, only 30 or so were there to see the candle's final moments, not counting the employees from StageSound who were wrapping up their duties for the night. Only five members of the media were on hand, even though there were more than 200 media credentials handed out.

Submitted by Chris Winston | The Roanoke Times

9 p.m. (8 p.m. central time), MLK Memorial Commons, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Ill.

Kate Weber, a photojournalist with the Daily Chronicle in Illinois, sent along these photos from tonight's Virginia Tech vigil held on the campus of Northern Illinois University. More than 1,000 NIU students gathered Wednesday night for the Huskies for Hokies candlelight vigil, in honor of the one-year anniversary. Students received candles as well as T-shirts with the Huskie and Hokie logos printed on them.

8:35 p.m., War Memorial, Virginia Tech



On his perch on the gray ledge of the War Memorial, Henry Bodenstein, 21, wiped away tears with his sleeve. Moments before he had been sitting with friends, joking and answering his cellphone.

Bodenstein sat high above the crowd in a maroon shirt with “We are Virginia Tech” printed across the back. When the vigil ended, it closed the same way as last year’s candlelit ceremony after the shooting, with the crowd shouting, in a deep echo: “Hokies!”

8:15 p.m., Mill Mountain, Roanoke

About 100 people gathered at the Mill Mountain Star for Wednesday night’s "Light the Night" ceremony.

The crowd wanted to make a gesture of remembrance for the Virginia Tech victims by aiming lights at the Mill Mountain Star, which Roanoke City Council had voted to leave dark on April 16.

Most of the 100 carried candles or flashlights of different varieties: Mag Lites; Energizer lanterns; six-volt battery models and kitchen drawer styles; even a fishing lamp with a badge that boasted 15 million candela power.

8:04 p.m., War Memorial, Virginia Tech
On the ledge overlooking the Drillfield, a crowd gathers.
"Dude, this is tight. You can see everything," one man explained into his cell phone.
On the Drillfield below, the crowd grows by the minute, a living mass of maroon and orange.
A few people wear suits as if going to church. A young woman, sitting on the gray stone ledge, wraps herself in a blanket. Across the crowd below, cameras wink like fireflies. A young student in a white ball cap takes in the scene.
"They're just piling in," the student said.
Submitted by Erinn Hutkin | The Roanoke Times

7:05 p.m., Squires Student Center, Virginia Tech

As mourners gathered on the drillfield at 8 p.m. to hear the last scheduled public reading of the names of the students and professors lost one year ago on April 16, Len Comaratta, Jessica Riddle, Rana Fayez and other WUVT staff worked in their third floor studio in Squires to produce their weekly music show, "The Local Zone."

Maintaining a sense of normalcy was uppermost in their minds.

"It’s like a scab, and they just keep scratching it until it bleeds," Comaratta said of the news coverage of the first anniversary of the worst school shooting in U.S. history. “There’s nothing new to say."

4:45 p.m., Blacksburg Baptist Church, Blacksburg

Members of six Blacksburg churches gathered on North Main Street beneath 32 flags representing the countries of origin of the victims of April 16th. They congregated, in the words of Blacksburg Baptist Church music director Charlotte Smith, "to move into hope."

People and pastors came from Blacksburg United Methodist, Blacksburg Presbyterian, Luther Memorial Lutheran Church, St. Mary's Catholic and Christ Episcopal churches. They assembled in the Baptist church's parking lot to break bread together in anticipation of a community remembrance service planned for 6:30.

4 p.m., Old Dominion Ballroom, Squires Student Center, Virginia Tech



Barbara Keown spent the afternoon helping run the “Remembering through art creation” site in the Old Dominion Ballroom.

Here, she saw beauty created on this day everyone was dreading. She spoke to a woman who came from Ohio to be at Tech today.

The woman’s daughter is a PhD student at the university and the woman was excited to find the art creation room after the morning’s Drillfield ceremony. The woman spent four hours painting a kite. By the time she was finished, it looked like a stained-glass butterfly.

3:40 p.m., Old Dominion Ballroom, Squires Student Center, Virginia Tech

The grass outside the Old Dominion Ballroom has become a graveyard, of sorts.

Those painting stones inside the ballroom, the site of a “remembering through art creation” activity center have placed the painted stones here on the lawn.

“Some of these are really good,” one student onlooker said. Some stones are stained maroon with an orange VT and the words “never forget.”

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.