Virginia Tech shootings hit close to home for some Seattle-area alums

For Marcus Jenkins and wife Cindy Forrest, Virginia Tech has been at the center of their lives for more than 20 years.

The couple were undergraduate students at the Blacksburg, Va., campus when they met, and they're still some of the most active alumni in the Puget Sound region. Forrest, who graduated in 1987, is the president of the Seattle chapter.

"It's a wonderful engineering school," Jenkins said this morning from his office at Microsoft. "The football team is wonderful. It really means a lot to us. It's where we met really great friends."

As Jenkins was talking by phone with a reporter, he stopped to talk to his boss, who had just heard that more than 20 had been shot dead by a gunman at the school. Jenkins said it's "disheartening" that someone would cause so much terror and violence in such a safe city.

"It's a sleepy little town in the mountains of Virginia," said Jenkins, who graduated in 1984.

Jenkins is sad for students so traumatized by the shootings that they might be afraid to go outside.

"This time of year it's absolutely gorgeous. Everything is budding. Spring quarter was awesome."

Jon Norris, owner of the People's Pub in Ballard and a 1990 Virginia Tech graduate, said that when he awoke around 10 a.m. he had about a half-dozen e-mails from friends in Virginia and local alums. He said a good friend has been attending classes in Norris Hall, where some of the shootings took place, and he was going to try to reach him.

"I haven't heard any bad news yet," Norris said.

People's Pub has been a haven for Virginia Tech fans since it opened. Norris has hung a school flag on the wall and often has the television fixed to school sporting events.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com