Ill. college to mark slayings anniversary

DEKALB, Ill., Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Saturday marked the one-year anniversary of the shooting of five students on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

School officials told the Chicago Tribune hundreds of students, university staff and members of the DeKalb community were expected to attend memorial events stretching throughout the day.

Others, however, told the newspaper the memories of the shootings -- in which a former NIU sociology graduate student killed five people and wounded 18 other before killing himself -- were still too painful to deal with.

"Maybe it's a coping mechanism, but I don't want to revisit all these terrible feelings," said Kristie Bongiovanni, who was the academic adviser to the killer, Steven Kazmierczak.

Among the events scheduled were a morning ceremony in which NIU President John Peters was to discuss the lives of the slain victims, followed by a private luncheon for the victims' families and other guests, during which Peters was to announce the recipients of scholarships in the victims' names.