University of Mississippi - Ole Miss Yearbook (Oxford, MS)

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THE DAY MADE US j,lwlu»ml hul hy DARRELL BLAKELY (h iomil by NOAH BUNN

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wm- m tT WAS A DAY FRC fui firefigFiter Kenny Tidwell.Aftet -nine draining hours, three were deacfSncTaitouse lay destroyed. wrilk ' ii by SALIMEH SHAMALY , he first week of fall classes had arrived, and students at Ole Miss were settling into the rhythm of college life. There were poster and T-shirt sales, mechanical bulls and live bands. Welcome Week T in full swing. Rumble in the Grove was set. Rockers Sister Hazel and Ingram Hill were scheduled to give an upbeat start to the new semester. But the concert never happened. Two 9 1 1 phone calls changed that August Friday at 4:30 a.m. - the three-story Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house was ablaze. Smoke engulfed the pre-dawn sky. Ri.sing flames scared the early morning clew. ATO members scrambled to account for each brother. The hou.se mother and more than 20 members all escaped unharmed. But in those fleeting moments of relief, miracles gave way to tragedies. Three brothers did not survive. Sophomore political science major Howard Hillhouse Stone, 19, of Martinsville, Va.; sophomore accountancy major William Moore Townsend, 19, of Clarksdale; and sophomore accountancy major Jordan Lowell Williams, 20, p[ Atlanta died within the fire-engulfed ATO Time stood still on our campus as we, confronted the reality o the trance y and bcg n to absorb the pain m our hearts and minds. -Robert C Kha at The Ole Miss commimity awoke to uncertainty. Students gathered near the devastating scene, embracing siu ' vivors and honoring the lost. All were united. Night fell on the smoky campus, but the crowds still gathered. Not for a rock concert, but in unspoken .solidarity hundreds made their way past the ATO house. Days later a campus still in shock came together again to begin healing over 3,000 made the solemn walk past the l)urned house to gather and morn the loss of the many sludenls who had lost their lives during ihe year. For months afterwards, all thai remained behind a green burla|) fence and laltered yellow (ape was the house ' s blackened Iramc and charred-wood smell. But despite all the tragedy, the student body began to (ind strength from ils pain.