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When a banner bearing messages of support and encouragement from the University of South Carolina to Virginia Tech filled up in just a couple of hours, Student Government representatives, who coordinated the project, created a "Page 2."
Messages covered that banner, too, in about a day and a half.
"I was definitely very pleased with the University's response," said Tara Kermiet, a graduate assistant for Student Government who earned her undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech. "On Monday night [April 16], the students decided that they were going to make a banner for our students and faculty and staff and anyone on campus to sign and send to Virginia Tech. They stayed late to work on it."
The first banner featured the mascots from both schools--a Gamecock on one side and a Hokie bird on the other. "They were both very well drawn, if I do say so myself, and they're both kind of hard to draw," Kermiet said. "The students sent the first poster to printing to have it laminated. It looked really nice."
Kermiet took the banners to Blacksburg the next weekend to hang them in the Student Center at Virginia Tech. The laminated banner found a home over the entrance to the center, and Kermiet hung the second banner on one of the wall dividers set up to display posters. That divider was covered entirely with messages and posters from the University of South Carolina.
"You can't even imagine how many posters and flowers were sent from different schools," said Kermiet, who received a BA in communication from Virginia Tech. "There were elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, governor's schools, all kinds of colleges from all over as well as schools from different countries."
Returning to the Virginia Tech campus was "really hard, somewhat surreal," said Kermiet, but it gave her a chance to stop and reflect.
"I had known five people who didn't make it," she said. "I hadn't really let myself think about it all that week. I stayed busy with the students helping them plan a vigil and the banners and everything. So, it was a good time for me to finally just sit and think about things. It made me feel good to see how well the whole community was sticking together, how well we were supported both nationally and internationally."
4/07
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Graduate student Tara Kermiet delivered the University's posters of support to the Virginia Tech community, above, and a Carolina student adds his name to one of the posters, below.
