The fragility of news: Remembering Kevin Hogan

Staff Editorial

The news broke in our inboxes that night at about 9:30 p.m., when some of us might have been going out to meet him.

Kevin Hogan, a senior criminal justice studies major, died Friday, Oct. 16 in his home on Brown Street. He also called the Cleveland suburb Rocky River his home. He was a captain on the rugby team. He was, a friend said, “painfully sweet.”

Death tests our human durability—whether it’s a family member, a friend or a friend of a friend. And in our community, we have a lot of friends of friends. Some people touch a lot of our lives, and when those people are suddenly torn from us, from our home, we’re struck and reminded that we have all been broken and can break again. Kevin was one that hit some of us hard.

At the time of this issue’s production, we have nothing further to report on what happened that night. Now is the time to reach out to each other. To tell each other it’s OK to be broken—it’s OK to feel weird. We can ask ourselves why we said what we last said, why we never tried to know him. It’s OK to ask difficult or answerless questions now because those are the questions that make us human, that make us empathize. And that’s sometimes all we can do when we hear news like this, when we have to report news like this.

As a platform for the voices in this community, we will continue to provide significant information about this tragedy with heightened sensitivity—but more importantly, we will continue to give Kevin a voice in the silence he left behind.

If you want to help give Kevin a voice, please email Amanda Dee at deea02@udayton.edu or Allie Gauthier at gauthiera1@udayton.edu. If you need to talk to someone, please call the Counseling Center at 937-229-3141 or visit the first floor of Gosiger Hall, Monday-Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. or call Campus Ministry at 937-229-3339.