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Matthew Gregory Gwaltney

Matt GwaltneyMatthew Gregory Gwaltney was a couple of years older than Vernon Hamilton when the two played basketball together for Chesterfield County’s Thomas Dale High School.

Gwaltney was always full of encouragement for his younger teammate, Hamilton recalled Tuesday.

"He was the type of person that everyone would dream of having the opportunity to know. He was a hardworking kid," Hamilton said. "He was a great kid."

Gwaltney was one of the victims of Monday’s shooting at Virginia Tech, according to a list of the deceased on CollegiateTimes.com, Tech’s student newspaper.

Hamilton, a senior at Clemson University in South Carolina, said he began to receive calls about his former teammate’s death late Monday night. No one had heard from the graduate engineering student, but they hoped for the best.

"But when it started to get late … I was really worried," said Hamilton, who added that Gwaltney wasn’t the type of person to stay out late on a weeknight.

Gwaltney was a second-year graduate student in civil and environmental engineering. He also earned his undergraduate degree from Tech in 2005 in civil engineering, with a concentration in environmental and water resources engineering.

He graduated from Thomas Dale in 2001.

Gwaltney left for college ahead of Hamilton but returned home for the summers, when the two would sometimes share an impromptu basketball game. "I’d see him at the YMCA, still playing pickup," Hamilton said.

In high school during Gwaltney's senior year, the two played together on a team that brought home both district and regional championships. But Hamilton said he’ll remember Gwaltney as much for his good nature as his skill on the court.

"I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to know someone like Matt Gwaltney," he said.

— Lindsay Kastner and Holly Prestidge, Media General News Service

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