Cho memorialized

http://www.roanoke.com/vtcampus/wb/114683


Student takes on heavy burden: appropriateness of Cho's stone
"You don't get to pick who's in your family," Katelynn Johnson said of Seung-Hui Cho.

Part of the mystery is solved.

Katelynn Johnson added the stone representing Seung-Hui Cho to the memorial in front of Burruss Hall.

When she heard someone had taken that stone from the semicircle that has drawn thousands of mourners to the Drillfield, she fired off an e-mail to The Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech's student newspaper. Cho was a Hokie, too, Johnson declared, a troubled member of the Hokie Nation, but a member nonetheless.

"You don't get to pick who's in your family," she declared.

Johnson also declared her intention to replace the stone. And if someone took that one, she'd replace it, too. She'd keep on bringing stones "for as long as the memorial remains there," she wrote. And she meant it.

Early Wednesday morning, she walked onto the Drillfield with a replacement stone in her backpack. But Cho's stone was there. Johnson recognized it. It sat a little out of line with the others. She counted. There were 33 stones.

"If it was removed," she said, "it's back."

She still has a spare, just in case. And she knows where to get more.

Johnson explained herself Wednesday evening. Again. She'd done seven or eight interviews in the past four hours, she said, including one with her hometown paper.

Johnson said she grew up in northern Minnesota. There were 900 people in her town, 34 students in her high school graduating class.

"I have a different sense of community," she said. "That's what brought me to Virginia Tech in the first place."

And her sense of community embraces the whole community, even when someone has done something horrible.

"I don't know how to not be that way," Johnson said.

She first noticed the memorial stones Wednesday afternoon. Someone commented there were a lot of them. They counted 32.

"It was heartbreaking for me," Johnson said.

Angry and sad, Johnson broke down in public for the first time, When her crying slowed, her boyfriend looked into her eyes and said, "You want to go get a 33rd stone, don't you."

"I said, 'Yes,' " Johnson recounted.

So she did.

About 4 a.m. April 18, Johnson placed the 33rd stone on the Drillfield.

She didn't do it under cover of darkness because of shame or fear, Johnson said. That's simply when she prefers to visit the memorials, when the crushing crowds and media hordes have evaporated. And she didn't want to draw attention to the stone. But she wanted it to be there.

After outing herself in The Collegiate Times, Johnson feared a backlash from people who think Cho doesn't deserve a place in that row of Hokie Stone.

She didn't answer her phone or check her e-mail Wednesday morning.

More than 100 e-mails flooded in while she was in class.

All but one, Johnson said, supported her. Some of them, she said, came from relatives of Cho's victims.

She doesn't hold Cho blameless, Johnson wrote in her e-mail. But she does believe every life has value and its loss is worth mourning -- even when that life is as troubled and ends as violently as Cho's.

Johnson graduates May 11, but she won't be leaving Tech. She plans to earn a master's degree in sociology there.

She wasn't sure about that before April 16, Johnson said.

She's certain now.

I think only the ones that lost their life to this mad shooter are the ones that should be remembered...Of course this is my opion and opions are like A**holes, everyone has one [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif[/img]

I guess I'm not a very good person, because I just don't think he should have a stone there.

Maybe if he had "snapped", I would have some sort of sympathy.
But he was so calculating in everything he did....going to the shooting range on multiple occasions months prior, purchasing the ammo and guns months prior, making the video and pictures, etc.

I feel bad for his family. I do.
But I still don't think he deserves any glory. Any recognition. Any honor.

What they should of done with those stone is stone her stupid A*S!!!

Putting a stone out for him is like saying "Thank you, Cho, for giving us the opportunity to make this fine memorial. Without you it wouldn't be possible."

She said "he's a Hokie too."
But judging from all that's been said about him he wasn't much into "being a Hokie."

i had to struggle with this this week, we are making t-shirts for a bball tourney and gonna wear the numbers 4, 16, 07 and originally planned to wear 32

but the way i look at it is that if we refuse to recognize his life like he refused to respect the lives of those he killed then we are stooping to his level, he had life, he lost it, was he not a child of God? was he not a Hokie? 33 lives were lost that day, 33 Hokies...i was on yalls side for most of last week but in the calm after the storm i felt it's just right to try and recognize he just was a messed up kid

At 23 I don't recognize a person as a kid. At 18 we are recognized as adults and at 18 we should start to take on the responsibility of adults. The trend of "infantizing" (if that's even a word) needs to stop. Every one else isn't always to blame. 99% of the time the person responsible for what happens to you is you. And, it's time we start holding ourselves to that standard. It ain't little league after you turn 18, not everyone gets a trophy...there will be winners and losers.

And therein lies the problem. Those entering college these days don't know that. They've been conditioned to the notion that 'everyone is a winner'.

In this life there are winners and losers. Turds and evil abound.

Yeah...I've always wondered why we try to "equalize success" amongst kids nowdays. When I was lil, if ya didn't win ya didn't get $hit...maybe a patch or something but not a medal like those who won got in addition to the patch. I just think kids should be taught that there are winners and losers...and that there is a such thing as responsibility.

Trace it back to the hippies of the 60s and 70s.