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Victims' Families Will Be Given Rings

May 8, 2007

By Rex Bowman

BLACKSBURG — Families of the 27 Virginia Tech students murdered on campus April 16 will receive school rings during commencement exercises this week.

The Balfour ring company of Austin, Texas, is donating the rings.

"This is something we'd like to do for the victims' families," said Sam Jordan, Balfour's Richmond-based national director of college sales. "We thought they might want a little piece of Tech."

The university is already planning to give the students posthumous diplomas at ceremonies Saturday.

Jordan said the rings will be in engraved, walnut boxes and will be handed out with the diplomas.

Jordan said he intends to take the rings to Grove Avenue Baptist Church, which he attends, for a blessing before taking the rings to Blacksburg tomorrow. Tech freshman Rachael Elizabeth Hill, one of the students killed by gunman Seung-Hui Cho, graduated last year from Grove Avenue Christian School, an affiliate of the church.

Jordan said Balfour, which has an exclusive contract to sell Tech rings, began discussing the donation with the Virginia Tech Alumni Association the evening of the shooting rampage, the deadliest in modern U.S. history.