I am UCC

Thursday, Oct. 1, will go down as one of the worst days of my life. Today, a 26-year-old gunman (I refuse to say his name) killed 9 people at my Alma Mater, Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. I know that all of my teachers who were mentors and close friends to me survived the massacre, but of the nine deaths, I only knew Larry Levine, and not very well. It really doesn’t matter whether or not I knew them, because many people did and many people loved those who are now gone, taken by the cruel selfishness of a single individual. The school that has meant so much to me, and the larger community of Roseburg—where my wife and I spent the vast majority of our lives—will never be the same.

UCC is a small school, with 3,000 full-time and close to 16,000 part-time students. Roseburg itself is a small community, with approximately 23,000 residents. It is generally a quiet place, and UCC is a quiet school; they’re both safe places to be. I began my college career at UCC in 2011, full of doubt that I could achieve a degree, given my age (I was 40 then) and the fact that I am learning disabled (I am diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder.) My time in school as a young man had been a nightmare, and going back at this late age was terrifying to me. I sincerely doubted I could make it.

The fact that I did make it, that I got my associate’s degree in 2014 with a 3.2 GPA (I had never gotten a single B, much less an A when I had been in school as a child) was due in large part to the support of the faculty and staff at UCC. They believed in me and showed so much patience and kindness when I would inevitably start to fall behind. That belief and that faith in me made me work as hard as I could to catch up. And I always did. A lot of that was because I just didn’t want to let them down.

I went through a lot to graduate. At one point about halfway through my first year, a bad combination of medicines caused me to start having seizures on a daily basis, and I ended up in the hospital for a three-day stay. I had to drop out of that semester, but I came back for the summer term and had my first straight-A term. The support I received from my advisor, Melinda Benton, and my English teacher, Gregg Smith, were invaluable for my overcoming that hiccup.

I live here in southern Utah because Charles Young, my history teacher, brought me along on his whirlwind adventure to the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Great Basin National Parks, free of charge. Because of that trip, I fell in love with Zion and southern Utah and knew I had found home. My wife and I started planning the move to St. George shortly after my return.

When graduation day came, I felt strangely out of place. I was proud of myself (I was a high school dropout, so graduating was a huge deal), but I also found myself really depressed. I couldn’t figure it out. Everyone around me was so happy, so elated to have done it, and all I could feel was this terrible loss. Before I accepted my degree from UCC’s then-president Joe Olson, I realized why I was so sad.

I had finally found my place. And now I had to leave it.

For many on the autism spectrum, being social and finding a place in society is a very difficult thing, and that has always been true for me. Many find me odd, and I have never had a lot of friends. People struggle to understand my way of thinking, and I tend to be less than popular.

Yet at UCC I was finally accepted, at least by my teachers, most of whom were around my age anyway. My writing was often held up as examples in what those teachers wanted from the class, something I had never experienced before. When I was young and in school, I was scorned and told what a bad example I was. My self-esteem has never been the greatest, but at UCC I finally felt competent.

At graduation, I realized what the terrible price of that degree was. I had to give up my place. I had to surrender a place in the world that I had always sought in order to have a piece of paper that said I had achieved something. That broke my heart, and I feel no shame to admit that I cried during graduation. It would take another week before I felt any real sense of happiness in my accomplishment.

I am the news editor here at the Independent. I wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for those friends and mentors. I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without Melinda, Gregg, and Amy, my English teachers. I wouldn’t aspire to make films nearly as much if wasn’t for Susan, whose class on foreign film inspired me to a new level. I wouldn’t even live in southern Utah if Charles hadn’t taken me, a broke college student, on an epic trip without asking for a penny.

On the morning of Oct. 1, I got a text from Melinda Benton, my advisor and mentor. It read, “Shooter on UCC campus. Students staff in lockdown. I’m ok, at home.” The brevity of her words awoke in me a sense of terror. Moments later my friend Tom, who lives in Ivins but knew I had moved from southern Oregon, sent me a Facebook message. It said, “Check the news. Shooting at Umpqua Community College. 10 dead.” The two messages must have come ten seconds apart.

I went into shock. Panic washed over me. How could this happen? Of course, it happens all the time in our country. I turned on CNN, gave my four-year old daughter my phone to watch a movie on, and spent the rest of the day transfixed, watching as the story unfolded. I saw familiar faces on TV, saw aerial footage of the buildings I had spent so much time in. I was a terrible state of fear. I knew Melinda was okay, but what about Amy, Gregg, Charles, and Nicholas? As the news came in that the attack took place in Snyder Hall, my heart sank. Amy, Gregg and Nicholas all worked in that hall.

Slowly, one by one, my friends checked in on Facebook and I began to have hope. But I was most worried about Gregg. As more details filtered in, reports stated that the shooting had taken place in the southeast corner of Snyder Hall. That was where Gregg’s room was. In fact, that was the room I had spent the largest amount of time in when I went to school there. I began to worry that we had lost this great man. Once, when my family and I had been really broke and my shoes were falling to pieces, Gregg had gone out and bought me a pair of boots, without asking. In fact, he had been slightly embarrassed that he had not bought me an expensive enough pair.

Eventually though, Gregg let us know via Facebook that he was alive. A palpable sense of relief had washed over me. But not for him. His office-mate and best friend, Larry Levine, was the teacher who had been shot. He had been shot in the head at point-blank range. Larry and Gregg had previously made plans to fly-fish in the next couple of days. So even though Gregg survived, a part of him has been taken forever.

There are going to be numerous stories similar to this that will come out over the next few tragic days—stories of the students who had aspired to make something of their lives, stories of older students like me who took a chance to seek that degree and overcome whatever difficulties they had faced (the average age of students at UCC is 38).

In Stewart Park in Roseburg that night, there was a candlelight vigil, and judging from the pictures I have seen, it was an enormous crowd of hundreds if not thousands of people. I wished I could have been there instead of a thousand miles away. I wish I could have been there to donate blood and help however I could instead of feeling helpless and lost. We left Roseburg in part because the economy there isn’t the best and the weather can be unpleasant, but it was never because of the people. So many good people are in Roseburg, some of the best friends I have ever had—and many were found right there at UCC.

That night, the people of UCC, Roseburg, southern Oregon and the United States went to sleep with heavy hearts. Many tears are being shed right now as the dawning reality of an awful and painful situation settles over the lives of those who have lost loved ones. In the morning, those tears start anew. For some, lives will eventually find some semblance of normalcy as the aching wounds heal through time, but the scars will always remain. For many of us, the thought of Umpqua Community College will be a bittersweet one. Like me, many will think fondly on the time they spent there, and the amazing support they received at the hands of the dedicated faculty and staff. But we will also never forget the terrible tragedy of Oct. 1, 2015. We will remember that people died there and that people were wounded terribly, inside and out. We will always remember that. We will always remain linked by that day. We will always be UCC. I am UCC.