LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Friday marks one year since the mass shooting on the UNLV campus that claimed the lives of three professors and seriously injured a fourth. As part of planned remembrance of events on campus, a student-led project one year in the making will be on display for the first time.
“It just evolved naturally…As time progressed, the amount of people involved just continued to grow and grow until we’ve reached the scale that we are at now,” shared Rin Ruby, a graduate student in chemistry who has crafted cranes by hand over the last year.
There are now 4,000 origami cranes in different colors, patterns, and textures, each folded by hand. It is a Japanese tradition: stringing them together in memory of the departed.
“I was supposed to go into her class the following semester,” shared Ruby about one the professors killed. Ruby, like many of her peers, felt she had to do something to honor the lives lost on campus especially the Japanese professor she never had the chance to meet.
“The day after the incident occurred, me and a few other people in my class, we all have a group chat together and someone had said that one of the professors who was killed…was Takemaru Sensei and she was the head of the Japanese department and I remember…feeling just kind of very angry that this happened to her like she didn’t deserve it,” Ruby contended.
As plans for a permanent memorial are still underway, this origami project with numerous “fold-a-thons” throughout the year was a hands-on way for students and faculty to process their emotions.
“I hope that through this project, not just myself, but a lot of people can feel like a sense of pride and hope and remembrance,” Ruby explained. The cranes will be arranged to spell out UNLV.
If there is an afterlife, Ruby hopes, the professors can look down on the display created in their honor with pride.
“Wherever they may be, know that so many people care about them, and that’s kind of what I’d like to get across. These professors are so loved, and they made such a big impact on this community,” Ruby stated.
It is estimated more than 200 people participated in the project including a former UNLV faculty member who moved back home to Japan and sent cranes by mail.
The project will be displayed in the courtyard of Beam Hall alongside six new murals. On Friday at 11 a.m., UNLV will hold the December 6th gathering to remember and reflect in the Alumni Amphitheater honoring the faculty killed one year ago.
Copyright 2024 KVVU. All rights reserved.
