Pine Mountain: Candlelit vigil remembers Jamie Bishop

Jamie Bishop and wife Steffie in an
undated photograph.

Almost 300 of Pine Mountain's 1,500 close-knit residents packed the First United Methodist Church Tuesday evening, in a candlelight vigil for Professor Jamie Bishop, gunned down in his classroom at Virginia Tech University Monday.

Worshipers gather at
First United Methodist Church
after memorial service. (Dave Bender)

Reverend Matthew Mitchell led an evocative service in the candlelit room, reading out a moving, and at times, humorous sermon that Jamie had himself written and given in 1989. Chaplain Quincy Brown of nearby LaGrange College, who also held a memorial service earlier in the afternoon, read the 23rd Psalm and The Lord's Prayer. The Chancel choir sang Amazing Grace.

"It was quite a nice service we had here today," said Sam Hill, a Pine Mountain resident and friend of the family of the vigil. "The crux of the sermon was, that you never know when your time's going to come, and to be prepared."

Eaborating on the idea of a predestined fate, Hall said, "We all thought in the congregation that Matthew was given a copy of that sermon, so that he could share it with the congregation here tonight."

Stunned residents of this rural town, near Calloway Gardens, know the Bishop family well. Michael Bishop, Jamie's father is a professor at LaGrange College, his mother Jeri is a counselor at Rosemont Elementary, where Jamie attended school.

Reverend Mitchell also knows the family well. Residents and churchgoers say the Bishops are active in the church; Michael teaches Sunday school there.

"You can't have a finer family in the church than the Bishops," Mitchell told GPB News. "They're the kind of people who, after a Wednesday night dinner, clean all the pots and scrub the floors," he said. "They're very involved in all ministry aspects of the church."

Pam Sewell, who teaches at Rosemont, said Jeri spoke with the school's principal, Natalie Givins on Monday night about how to break the awful news to the children:

"'Just do one thing, and tell those kids just to do the best they can,'" Bishop said. Sewell said the issues weren't immediately discussed with the pupils on Tuesday. "If any of the children had heard anything on the news, we just said, 'we'll talk about it later.'"

"'When Mrs. Bishop got back, she was going to need a lot of hugs, and that those would be the band-aids on her heart,'" Givins gently explained to the children, Sewell said.

"Then all of our fourth and fifth-graders children made hearts, with little messages to her on them, and they're all over her door, waiting on her." Sewell said, adding that she was "sad and hurt for [the Bishops] and all the families. We're here [at the vigil] to respect and honor her."

Michael and Jeri, and Jamie's sister Stephanie attended a memorial service the same evening at Virginia Tech University. They drove there on Monday, as soon at they were told of Jamie's death.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of this story.

Meanwhile, a Columbus resident and grandmother of two students who attend Virginia Tech University is breathing a lot easier today.

Helen Burke, 81, anxiously watched her television hour after gory hour on Monday, appalled by scenes of the shooting mayhem that killed 32 students and faculty.

But her granddaughter, Arlane Gordon-Bray, was not in immediate danger having stayed in her room on campus as the day's bloody events unfolded. Only much later in the afternoon did Burke get word that her grandson, Marque Burke, was also safe.

Gordon-Bray is an assistant residence hall manager at the school, and an international studies and French major, according to a story appearing in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.