#4-Ward Burton spent five hours Monday at Virginia Tech where he ate with mechanical engineering faculty members, mingled with students and visited memorials dedicated to the victims of last week’s shootings. Burton came to campus from his Halifax home Monday morning with wife, Tabitha, and 14-year-old son, Jeb, who has aspirations of becoming a Tech student. We just wanted to come show our support, said Burton, who was invited by a friend in the Virginia Tech Alumni Association. Burton said the tragedy has had a significant impact on the NASCAR community because of the number of Tech engineering alumni who work on Cup teams. I’m a Virginian and I know that Virginia Tech has had influence from urban to rural all over the state of Virginia, said Burton, who donates annually to the university. It’s just a far-reaching institution that does so many great things for the state of Virginia. Burton is in talks with car owner Larry McClure about displaying the Tech colors at races later this season. It’s just sad that there are people that are discontented in the world and there are people that are that angry in the world that they take it out at innocent people, Burton said. Everybody is going to rally around this institution and it’s going to rise way above this tragedy and even be more powerful and make more of a difference than it ever did before.(Roanoke Times)(4-24-2007)
