Evan Luke’s life had great impact

    One year has passed since the death of GCSU student Evan Luke, but his friends still feel the pain and shock of losing him so suddenly and tragically.
    Josh Campbell, a senior English major, said he was completely shocked when he heard the news of Luke’s death.
    “I didn’t want to believe it,” Campbell said.  “I had never lost anyone tragically that I had actually known.”
    Campbell said on the night of Halloween last year, there was a big party downtown. Luke and another man his age began to argue on the way home.
    “I don’t think they knew each other before they started arguing,” Campbell said.  “I know it was something petty — ridiculous — something not worth even fighting over.”
    The argument escalated and both Luke and his opponent grew more heated.
    “The thing that gets me the most is that it was because of alcohol,” Campbell said.  “It wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for alcohol.”
    Campbell knows that Luke was stabbed and later died, but he chose not to find out any more details.
    “I didn’t want to know anything else,” Campbell said.  “At that point it didn’t really matter.  I just couldn’t believe he wasn’t here anymore.”
    According to Campbell, Luke had been experiencing a turning point in his life during the months before his death.
    “Evan was just getting his life back together,” Campbell said.  “He was coming back into his own and getting his grades back up, then a few days later he was gone.”
    Campbell said it would be difficult to prevent this type of thing from happening again.  He said the best way to prevent it would be to remember stories like Luke’s and learn from the mistakes made.
    “It is a reference point to look back at what happened that changed things forever,” Campbell said.  “This happened then so we won’t do it again.  It will affect people’s decisions.” 
    Motie Wiggins, a junior management major and childhood friend of Luke’s, said the one-year anniversary of Luke’s death helped bring some closure for him.
    “You mourn, then you mourn some more,” Wiggins said.  “You don’t stop mourning, but you move on.  Evan wouldn’t want us to be here sitting around; he’d want us to move on with our lives.” 
    Wiggins and Luke grew up in the same subdivision and they played baseball and fished together.  As they grew older, they stayed in touch and eventually they both came to GCSU.  Wiggins said Luke was one of his best friends.
    “When you lose someone that close to you, you start asking questions,” Wiggins said.  “It starts putting things in perspective — it could have been me.  It makes you wake up and look at the world differently.”
    J.W. Thaxton, a senior management major and former roommate of Luke’s said he and Luke were good friends.  Thaxton was with Luke earlier on the night he died.
    “It’s still hard to believe it happened,” Thaxton said.  “To think that a night like that would end so tragically.  I don’t think we’ll ever be over it.”
    Johnny Ricks, president of Kappa Sigma, the fraternity of which  Luke was a member, said many of the guys in the fraternity went downtown on the night of Halloween and offered rides to students in memory of Luke.
    “We just wanted to do everything we could to make sure it didn’t happen again,” Ricks said.  “We want to make sure everyone is safe.”
    Ricks said there were around 45 to 50 drivers throughout the evening.  He said they drove around 300 people either to or from downtown.
    The fraternity spread the word of the rides by telling all the other fraternities and sororities and also by a Facebook group. 
    Kappa Sigma is creating a scholarship in memory of Luke.  The fraternity will have a fundraiser next semester to raise money for the scholarship.  Ricks hopes it will go into effect in the Fall.  Ricks said the scholarship would be available to a male student, but they are still working on the qualifications.
    “It was kind of a chapter decision,” Ricks said.  “I think Evan would approve.”
    Ricks said the one-year anniversary of Luke’s death was a good wake-up call for him and others.
    “It definitely doesn’t seem like it’s been a year,” Ricks said.  “All in all, it woke up a lot of people here.  It can happen even in our backyard.”  

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 10 2006. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry