By Matt Gentry
The Roanoke Times
BLACKSBURG, VA – The shootings at Virginia Tech and having Blacksburg cast into the national spotlight because of the worst massacre in United States history has been an ordeal, to say the least.
On Monday April 16, a nor’easter had arrived in Blacksburg from the west. It was cold, in the temperatures in the 20s over night, and high wind gusts of up to 30 m.p.h. pounded the area. When I got up that day, I thought the weather would be the story of the day. There were trees down all over the area and 2 inches of snow had fallen at Mountain Lake west of town.
I drove up to Mountain Lake, which features a historic resort hotel, and was making a photograph when New River Bureau assistant editor Shay Barnhart called me with the news of a shooting on campus. She also called photographer Alan Kim, who works part-time for The Roanoke Times from Blacksburg was able to make the gripping photographs of victims being removed from Norris Hall. It took me about 45 minutes to arrive on the back side of Norris Hall and I made the best photographs I could from a vantage point behind a police car, along with a television photographer from WDBJ-TV.
I stood in one spot during the hardest, coldest wind I have ever felt. That’s one of the things I will remember most about that horrible day. The weather seemed to be a manifestation of the massacre that had occurred. After hours of standing in the wind, information about what had happened became available, and a dark shadow had been cast over our small town in the Alleghany Mountains of southwestern Virginia.
One of the only good things that I can think of that’s come out of the shootings at Virginia Tech has been hearing from old colleagues and friends, people I’ve worked with over the years who saw my photographs on the networks or over the AP wire from that horrific day. In the days following the event, I’ve heard from people all over the country. We even received a message from the news photographers at the Rocky Mountain News who covered Columbine and who offered their support and shared their experience with covering a massacre. The townspeople that I know, and the familiar faces I see, are a true comfort in a small town like Blacksburg.
One of the difficulties that I’m personally experiencing is that some of the doors and minds that were once open to The Roanoke Times and our style of hometown journalism are now closed. Blacksburg is a small town and our innocence has been violated. Because of one madman with two guns our lives here have forever changed, and the term “life as normal” has been redefined.
Matt Gentry is a Blacksburg native and staff photographer for the Roanoke Times.
