NIU marks Feb. 14 with daylong events

DEKALB, Ill. (AP) — While remembering a tragic day and five lives lost one year ago, hundreds of people gathered at Northern Illinois University on Saturday and looked forward with hope.

On Feb. 14, 2008, people fled the university in panic after former NIU student Steven Kazmierczak entered an auditorium and unleashed gunfire on a classroom of students. One year later, the campus was quiet as friends, family and administrators returned to solemnly remember the students killed and, at the same time, vow to keep going themselves.

"She would've wanted me to be here," said 20-year-old Courtney Roy of her childhood friend, Gayle Dubowski, who was killed in the slayings. "She always pushed me and she's pushing me now."

It was Roy's first visit to the campus. Dubowski had asked her to come before, but there was never time.

"It's a little scary, I guess because of the emotion of last year coming back," Roy said.

Roy was in the audience at a memorial service Saturday in the DeKalb university's darkened convocation center. The stands were dotted with people wearing NIU's red colors as students on stage recited quotes from family and friends about each of the people killed. President John Peters concentrated on the legacy of the students who died.

"A year ago in this very place we vowed not to let an act of violence define us — and we have not," he said. "We are strengthened by a renewed sense of unity and purpose."

Chicagoan Adekunle Sosina, 22, appeared shaken as he left the service. The senior said he would have been in Cole Hall, where the shootings took place, if he hadn't skipped a class.

"I feel like it could've been anybody," he said. "You have to pay homage to your fellow students."

University officials announced Saturday a plan to plant 20 trees and erect five slabs of granite on a site near Cole Hall as a memorial. Each stone will be engraved with a victim's name.

People were drawn to the spot Saturday, many gathering on the banks of a pond near five white crosses decorated with teddy bears and roses.