The bold headline on the front page of today's Erie Times-News shouts: Horrific. And I can't think of a better word to describe Monday's shooting rampage at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., which claimed 33 lives.

A 23-year-old gunman, who was a senior English major, massacred 32 people in two attacks two hours apart before he finally took his own life. The effects of the violent attack were felt as far away as Erie, as family member of students at the picturesque campus in the Blue Ridge Mountains called the Times-News for information about their children and siblings.

Jessica Carleton, a 22-year-old Erie native who is studying nurtition and exercise at Virginia Tech, told Times-News reporters Erica Erwin and Scott Waldman that the shooting "didn't seem real." She said she and her roomates huddled in their house, located near campus, to watch news reports.

Missy Breckenridge, associate vice president in the office of academic affairs at Erie's Mercyhurst College, told the Times-News about the horrible anxiety she experienced while waiting to hear from her two daughters -- 22-year-old Annemarie and 20-year-old Christine -- both of whom are students at Virginia Tech.

Breckenridge was nearly sick with worry before both women e-mailed their mother to let her know they were OK.

Officials from colleges in northwestern Pennsylvania spoke about steps they might take to try to get the word out to students about such an unfolding nightmare. One police chief at an Erie campus said such an incident could never happen at his college, but a professor at the school told me, "It's baloney. College campuses are wide open. How in the world could you stop such a madman?"

Perhaps you couldn't, but as callers and letter writers, who e-mailed messages to the Times-News, asked today asked: What are the best ways to alert students to such an unfolding tragedy? Such questions will be discussed and debated over the course of coming months or even years, you can be sure of that.

As the father of a college freshman, I know how you always hope and pray your children will be safe. Granted, until Monday, most American campuses were free of such violence. But the saddest development of Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech is the sense that children are never fully protected from madmen. It didn't help that Monday's killer was well armed and bent on revenge. I don't mean to be melodramatic, but such horrific events as Monday's at Virginia Tech make you worry about the world in which your children are growing up.

-- Kevin Cuneo

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