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UNCC Committee Recommends $1M Memorial To Remember Classroom Shooting

David Boraks
/
WFAE
The committee charged with finding the best way to remember those killed and injured in a classroom shooting at UNC Charlotte has recommended a $1 million memorial.

The commission charged with finding the best way to memorialize two students killed and four more injured in an April 30, 2019, classroom shooting at UNC Charlotte has recommended a $1 million memorial and a repurposing of the room where the shooting took place.

According to the Niner Nation Remembrance Commission Final Report released Tuesday evening, a “significant, focal memorial and commemorative space in Belk Plaza” would honor by name Reed Parlier and Riley Howell, the two students killed by a gunman, with the goal for it to be completed by 2022.

The proposal outlines a timeline for design proposals, groundbreaking and completion of the memorial, with the April 30 anniversary serving as a date for the most significant touchstones in the process.

Additionally, the committee recommends a series of exhibits that would highlight memorial items, scholarships named in honor of Parlier and Howell, and a Day of Remembrance.

Further, the committee recommends that the classroom where the shooting took place, Kennedy 236, be repurposed into a “contemplative space.” Currently, the classroom and adjoining Kennedy 234 are not being used.

Jodie Valade has been a Digital News and Engagement Editor for WFAE since 2019. Since moving to Charlotte in 2015, she has worked as a digital content producer for NASCAR.com and a freelance writer for publications ranging from Charlotte magazine to The Athletic to The Washington Post and New York Times. Before that, Jodie was an award-winning sports features and enterprise reporter at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio. She also worked at The Dallas Morning News covering the Dallas Mavericks — where she became Mark Cuban's lifelong email pen pal — and at The Kansas City Star. She has a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University and a Master of Education from John Carroll University. She is originally from Rochester Hills, Michigan.