On April 16th, 2007, a senseless act of campus violence took 32 lives at Virginia Tech, including 27 graduate and undergraduate students and five professors. Two people were killed in Ambler Johnston Residence Hall on the south side of campus, and 25 students and professors were killed in Norris Hall on the north side, all by a deranged student. Dozens more students and members of the faculty and staff were injured or traumatized. In the hours after the tragedy, the student-run volunteer organization Hokies United placed 32 Hokie Stones on the Drillfield, where friends and classmates spontaneously arranged them in a semicircle to honor each person slain, and the stones became a gathering place for mourning, paying respects, and reflecting on the lives lost. Dedicated on August 19, 2007, a permanent memorial recreated those 32 stones, with each victim’s name carved in Hokie Stone, a native limestone long tied to Virginia Tech tradition, as a symbol of the enduring bond of the Hokie Nation, its relentless spirit, its commitment to move forward as one community, and its determination never to forget the 32 people who died that morning.