Remembering ‘their extraordinary light’
Hundreds gather at Vandal Healing Garden on 2-year anniversary of the Moscow murders
Hundreds of University of Idaho students withstood Wednesday’s rain and cold to honor the lives of four fellow Vandals killed in a 2022 tragedy.
The Associated Students of the UI, the university’s student government, organized a candlelight vigil on the two-year anniversary of the quadruple homicide that took the lives of Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle.
The event was held at the Vandal Healing Garden and Memorial, which was built this year to honor those four students as well as other Vandals who have died.
“It really brings us together — the darkness has brought us together and has formed a community and it really means a lot that so many people came out to show support,” said UI senior Whitney Milleson.
Students lit candles and wrote messages to Mogen, Goncalves, Kernodle and Chapin on postcards that were placed in the memorial. Flowers were left below plaques with the names of the four deceased students.
UI junior Gavin Aus stood near those plaques Wednesday as he took in the scene.
“It’s wonderful to be able to celebrate the life that they lived and the memories that they left behind and all the good that they brought,” he said.
Aus is president of Vandal Solutions, a student marketing organization on campus that helped raise money for the Vandal Healing Garden and Memorial.
He called the memorial “really, really wonderful” because it was built by students, for students.
“It’s all encompassing of all UI students,” he said. “It’s not just those we’ve lost but also those that we’ve found because of it.”
The nonprofit Made With Kindness, which was created in memory of the four victims, handed out the postcards to students and reminded the crowd that Nov. 13 is also known as World Kindness Day.
Angela Navejas, co-founder of Made With Kindness, said Mogen, Goncalves, Kernodle and Chapin were known for their “unwavering kindness, infectious laughter and the warmth they brought to everyone around them.”
“Those of us fortunate enough to have known them experienced their extraordinary light,” she said.
As the crowd held a moment of silence, a beacon of light built on the south end of the memorial lit up the dark, rainy sky.
Kuipers can be reached akuipers@dnews.com.
