The Seton Hill University (Greensburg, Pennsylvania) Lacrosse team was traveling to a game this morning on a bus via the Pennsylvania Turnpike. FOX NEWS reports that as yet the authorities don't know why but the bus went off the Turnpike and hit a tree.
The head coach Kristina Quigley, 30 and six-months pregnant, died as did the baby she was carrying. This was her second year in that job. Also dead was the bus driver. Two other passengers were air-lifted to special hospitals and others were transported to hospitals near the site of the crash.
The sadness felt in the university community of Seton Hill extends to all us graduates. At the time many of us could not afford cars and we hopped on the leased buses to attend social events off campus where we hoped to find our soulmates. In those days, there was no concept of "networking" for professional ambitions. We could have been on that bus. Late afternoon my roommate from junior year Charlotte Toal sent me the news clip.
When Charlotte and I were taking Freshman Composition at Seton Hill, our professor Joanne Boyle, now president of the university, introduced us to the poetry of John Donne. One of those classic poems was about our common humanity. The lines so often quoted are that we shouldn't ask for whom the bell tolls when there is funeral in town, we should embrace that it tolls for each of us.
I extend my wishes for healing in such grief to all the members of the Seton Hill community.
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