why I'm still, and always will be, a Hokie

This post is kind of more for the newer people in my life, newer meaning we've only known each other for a year or two. At this point everyone knows that I'm a local, while I moved around a lot when I was younger and my hometown is a little under two hours down the road, I can now say that I've spent the majority of my life living in or around Christiansburg and Blacksburg.

I spent a year as a student at Virginia Tech, and I know that there were people from Radford who threw shade at me for transferring because of the negative stigma that some people at Radford hold against VT. I know for a fact that the bad vibes come from students from both universities and people throw shade at each other left and right, especially on yik yak. I've had people make comments to me or around me about both places, and it irritates the crap out of me because both VT and Radford hold such special places in my heart, and sorry RU, but especially the Virginia Tech campus.

I don't care if you don't like their football team. I don't care if you think that Hokie stone is ugly, or if you think that they're just overall "overrated" or whatever. I don't want you to like any of those things for me. My mom graduated from VT, I grew up going to Hokie football games and spending nice spring days at the duck pond. I've had several friends attend and I've visited. I love downtown Blacksburg. Not to mention the year that I spent as a student there completely immersing myself in the camaraderie that exists among the student body.

All I want you to do is respect what this community, and what April 16, 2007 means to me. I spent that day on lockdown at school because of our close proximity. I walked past a classroom with the television on, the news organization parading the number of wounded across the bottom. I know people who were on campus that day. I don't expect you to understand my feelings associated with that day, or why I felt like I was in the safest place in the world when I stood in front of Burruss Hall at the first candlelight vigil only days later.

All I ask is that the act of Hokies Respect is mirrored across all communities and that no matter the size of the tragedy, we come together to remind each other that not all hope is lost.

"The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities..."