Virginia Tech to relocate 61 people’s remains to clear path for dorm construction (copy)
BLACKSBURG — Virginia Tech will soon disinter and relocate the remains of 61 people — most of them alumni — to make way for two new dormitories, a decision that has drawn dismay and disappointment from family members who believed their loved ones would remain there in perpetuity.
The Virginia Tech Columbarium overlooks the Duck Pond beside the Holtzman Alumni Center. The burial site consists of three Hokie Stone and granite walls, each containing 60 sealed niches that have served as a final resting place for Hokies since 2011.
By June, all remains interred there will have been removed. Families who leave their loved ones’ remains in the university’s care will have them temporarily stored before reinterment at a new columbarium on Dairy Drive overlooking the Virginia Tech baseball field, Duck Pond Drive and the Southgate Drive traffic circle.
Other families will retrieve the remains for personal storage until they can be laid to rest on campus again or accept a refund and make off-campus burial arrangements.
A permanent location
Each family contacted by The Roanoke Times said they believed their relatives’ remains would remain at the columbarium permanently.
“I just don't want them to move it,” said Bryan Emmerson, a Virginia Tech alumnus whose brother, Derek Emmerson — also an alumnus and former professor — is interred in the columbarium.
Emmerson said he chose to attend Virginia Tech because of his older brother, who “loved the university,” recalling that Derek once gave him a chunk of Hokie Stone for Christmas.
“I want my brother to be where we laid him to rest, where my father, the pastor, stood there and did his ceremony, and as I watched my niece and nephew put my brother's remains in the hole,” he said.
Bob Norfleet’s wife, Laura Whitesell Norfleet, died in 2021 at age 87. Now 93, Norfleet said he and his wife met in Blacksburg and later watched their children and grandchildren go on to attend Virginia Tech.
Describing the Norfleets as “a Virginia Tech family,” he said the university’s decision marked the first time he had felt negatively toward his hometown college.
“I feel like this is a decision that they have made without giving us any options as to whether we were happy for it to be moved or not,” Norfleet said.
Geoffrey Barnes’ parents, George and Janet Barnes, are interred overlooking the pond he remembers from childhood visits to Blacksburg, when trips to see his grandparents often included feeding ducks at the pond.
“We all know that our parents are going to pass, but in some ways, you reach a point where you say, ‘Okay, I've got them interred, I don't have to think about this every day anymore,’” Barnes said. “This kind of brought back all the memories of both of them dying.”
Walter and Donna Jones’ son, Andy Jones, was interred in the columbarium after his death at age 46. The couple described their son as “a big Hokie” and said the current location held special meaning because of his love for the university and his desire to one day return.
“We thought of all the places our Andy would like to be, it would be there, looking over the Duck Pond, seeing Lane Stadium,” Donna Jones said.
“Obviously, had we been told that that was a temporary location, we would never have committed to the columbarium,” Walter Jones added.
Virginia Tech spokesperson Mark Owczarski said “the overwhelming vast majority” of families contacted by the university have been “supportive and understanding” of the decision, noting that 91% chose to keep their niches.
The contract
On April 14, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors approved a resolution authorizing the relocation of the columbarium. Before the board signed off, the university had already begun contacting families and niche holders to inform them of the plan and request consent.
The “relocation response form” sent to families offered three choices: relocate remains to the new columbarium site, retrieve remains until they can be reinterred elsewhere or request a full refund and make other arrangements. The form did not include an option to reject the relocation.
Kathy Emmerson, Derek Emmerson’s widow, returned her form unsigned and requested a contract addendum clarifying how the university would handle the new columbarium in the future.
She said she feared the burial site could one day be moved again, forcing her children to bury their father for a third time.
Virginia Tech provided an amended contract but not the assurances she requested. The revised document included a clause stating that the university “reserves the right to relocate or modify the columbarium.”
Bryan Emmerson, a former FBI agent, filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records related to the university’s decision-making process and prior columbarium contracts.
The university initially estimated the request would cost more than $9,000 to fulfill, leading him to narrow it to a request that cost about $200.
Despite their objections, the Emmersons ultimately chose to relocate Derek Emmerson’s remains to the new site, saying they believed he would still want to remain on campus.
Walter and Donna Jones chose a different option. After consulting an attorney with Bryan Emmerson about whether they had legal recourse and learning it would be difficult to secure even a temporary injunction, the couple accepted the roughly $5,000 refund — adjusted for inflation — and decided to bury their son elsewhere.
From his retirement home in Richmond, Norfleet wrote a letter expressing his displeasure with the relocation and included it with the consent form approving the transfer of his wife’s remains. He said he never received a response to the letter.
Barnes, who now lives in the United Kingdom, said returning to Virginia to move his parents’ remains himself would have been impractical. After lengthy discussions with university officials, he decided that although he viewed the new location as inferior, his parents would still want to remain at Virginia Tech.
The new location
Once relocated, the columbarium will sit atop a small, wooded hill near two university-owned homes, at least one of which will be demolished before the site is completed.
Owczarski described the new site as “a peaceful, quiet, dignified, respectful location that is of great value to families.”
The families contacted by The Roanoke Times all expressed dissatisfaction with the new location, citing the nearby traffic circle, airplane noise from Virginia Tech Montgomery Executive Airport and the loss of the centrally located Alumni Center, which provided a gathering place and shelter for visitors.
“It looks to me like it's right on the very edge of the campus, and it looks like it's just a place that they want to get rid of it and forget about it,” Norfleet said.
For Norfleet and the Emmersons, the relocation is not just about their relatives’ remains, but their own. All three purchased niches intending to one day rest beside their loved ones. All of the columbarium’s empty niches had been sold before the relocation plan was announced.
Bryan Emmerson’s FOIA request produced a script drafted by Owczarski and distributed to university officials responsible for contacting family members. The document included suggested responses to anticipated concerns about the new site.
In response to expected complaints about traffic noise, the script referenced landscaping features that would “lessen noise” and stated that “over time, as those plantings mature, the peacefulness effect of those measures will increase.”
Addressing airplane noise, the guidance stated that “on occasion, visitors will hear the sound of a jet landing and taking off, but the interruption lasts no more than 10-15 seconds.”
“Maybe it's appealing to some, but the location of the new columbarium does not appeal to us,” Walter Jones said.
The new dormitories
The university plans to build two dormitory buildings, each with 600 beds, where the columbarium now stands. The project is part of Virginia Tech’s broader master plan and a recently approved housing strategy aimed at renovating much of the campus’s aging dormitory stock.
Owczarski said the university has historically developed outward from the Drillfield and that the land near the Alumni Center is among the few centrally located buildable areas remaining on campus with proximity to dining halls, classrooms and transit infrastructure.
“When you're siting 1,200 beds, you have to look at how you can situate the building so that it is safe, it's on solid ground, and you have to look at its proximate location to the rest of campus,” he said.
For some family members, however, the expansion feels like the university is trading their past for its future.
“The problem with quick growth is eventually the branches are going to break,” Bryan Emmerson said. “The trees that are still standing today are the ones that are slow growers. It's not the pear tree, it's the oak.”
