“Let it be a story, not an incident,” Keene State College Student Body President Bobby Graham, said, “As far as the blame game, I don’t care about who did it, I don’t care if it wasn’t us, this is our city, this is our home and we had a piece of our home taken from us and it’s up to us and only us to take it back.”
Graham continued, “The stories that were covered Saturday night were exactly what the media would cover because that’s what is going to sell … but at the same time there is a lot of value in journalism that captures the whole picture, not just instances.”
According to the The Campus Crime (Clery) Report, “Keene State College is located in the City of Keene, a quiet New England city of 25,000 residents, with a relatively low crime rate.”
However, the media has portrayed KSC students as “rioters” and shown numbers such as 84 arrests, one car overturned, two dumpsters overturned and more than 30 people with injuries, according to Boston Globe, but there are numbers they haven’t seen.
According to the President’s Community Service Honor Roll, in the last academic year (2013-14) KSC students did a total of 75,713 service hours.
Jessica Gagne Cloutier, coordinator of community services at KSC, said in the 2013-14 academic year students raised $37,000 for Relay for Life and Saint Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, donated 230 pints of blood to the Red Cross, spent over 800 hours tutoring children in reading skills and sent more than 100 students to work with the Alternative Spring Break program which resulted in more than 3,300 hours of donated time.
Oct. 10, just eight days before Pumpkin Fest, Community Service Day at KSC had the biggest event thus far, according to Cloutier.
Those sets of numbers are two opposite ends of the spectrum. KSC students admitted they aren’t trying to claim they are strait-laced.
“It’s not like we don’t party, we party almost every weekend,” KSC senior Ryan Darby said, “But we do it appropriately and we respect the police, respect each other and respect our home. It is never like this.”
President Anne Huot spoke of the events that surrounded this past Pumpkin Fest and said that although she knows KSC students took part, she does not think KSC students were the ones who caused many of the problems.
Huot said, “I was out there early Saturday morning, I was out there all day Saturday and Saturday evening. I recognize a lot of you and I didn’t see a lot of you and I’m heartened by the reality. We certainly participated, there’s no question in my mind, but I don’t think it reflects the overall spirit of this college.”
Huot continued, “I saw our students and [residence assistants] helping the wounded, I saw people making sure others got to safe ground, I saw many of you huddled in groups expressing your astonishment, I saw a lot of you walking the other way trying to stay out of the area and also taking care of each other. I heard [the students] saying to each other … ‘This isn’t what we want to be a part of.’ All those things are really positive reflections of how much you care about each other and your home.”
Director of Campus Safety, Amanda Guthorn, said, “I am so impressed and humbled by our students and how great they are.”
On Saturday, Guthorn said she saw acts of kindness all day from KSC students and faculty, one of which included a young woman escorting an injured person to the emergency medical technicians [EMTs], without even knowing who the injured person was.
Others included students working in the student center to provide a safe spot for those seeking shelter. People in the dining commons brought coffee to firefighters and EMTs working in the Spaulding Gym.
In addition, two students in the gym got medical supplies and helped out the EMTs.
“There were times like that all night long, but those are ones that stick out for me,” Guthorn said.
KSC Senior Nick Piro said he helped two people who he didn’t recognize get medical attention.
“I saw a kid stumbling on the bike path and his friends were helping hold him up. My girlfriend, who is a nursing student, noticed and pointed it out, she said ‘He needs to get to a hospital.’ I went over to kids helping him and told them that. I helped them get the kid to the EMTs. He was not moving at all, not functioning, just breathing and barely flickering his eyes. Took five people to carry him to end street where EMT[s] were,” Piro said.
He took someone else to the EMT who had “blood pouring from his head from a bottle. He was conscious and appreciative that I helped him out,” Piro said.
“It’s a scary situation, being hit in the head like that. I just wanted to help out, it’s not supposed to be a war zone on Pumpkin Fest, it was scary,” Piro said.
Piro, who lives on Winchester Court, said he didn’t recognize people who were hurt, but felt like he needed to help in any way he could.
“I just wanted everyone to be safe, it was chaotic and I couldn’t even enjoy myself,” Piro said.
Piro continued, “They really needed help and couldn’t just brush it off. I would want the same for me if I were ever in a medical situation.”
Piro said he would have probably recognized if the people in his yard or the ones he helped were from KSC, “It’s a small community, even if you don’t know them you’ve seen them around,” Piro said, “It’s like a bigger high school where you live with these people.”
“I’ve never met a student [at KSC] that seems so cold hearted that they wouldn’t help out someone in that situation,” Piro said, “Majority of people I’ve meet here are so friendly. They are always helping and making sure everyone is having a good time.”
Other KSC students helped on the day of Pumpkin Fest.
Brett Lancaster and Emma Clason, KSC students and Spaulding Gym employees, worked a shift together Saturday of Pumpkin Fest that started around one.
They both said it was slow until two hours into their shift when they got a call from Campus Safety saying that they had to shut down the gym.
“They turned the halls of the gym into a field hospital in minutes,” Lancaster said.
Clason and Lancaster are both CPR and First Aid certified and said they felt prepared and wanted to help.
Clason said she and Lancaster got introduced to the head of EMT, who asked them to bring any supplies the gym had.
Lancaster said they brought medical kits, blankets, towels, gauze and gloves.
He said the patients who came in had lacerations caused from bottles and glass at the Winchester Court party, some injuries being more serious than others.
Clason said a patient she worked with ended up having to go to the hospital.
“I went into the bathroom with her to see if she was okay, I was trying to talk to her and get her information when she started throwing up,” Clason said.
She said the girl then fell to the floor unconscious, when Clason climbed under the bathroom stall to unlock the door and check her before she went to get other medical help.
When Lancaster and Clason worked with patients, Clason said, “The EMTs always showed us what to do before leaving us on our own to help patients.”
Lancaster said he sat with patients and because they saw him as a student and not someone with authority, they felt more comfortable with him and were able to calm down. He said some patients were hysterical, in shock, in pain, intoxicated and scared.
Although there were times during the day when there were more patients than EMTs, Clarson said after two hours of helping it became much less crowded and their help was no longer needed, but they were happy they could help when it was needed.
Along with helping students, KSC students also tried to help police in any way they could.
Ryan Darby, owner of a house on the corner of Blake St. and Winchester St., said police officers were first outside his house around 2 p.m. and stayed there for about 12 hours. Darby said around 9 p.m., “We gave two cases of water to police after rioters threw tear gas and pepper spray bombs back in their direction.”
He said the police were coughing and wiping their eyes while trying to stay focused on doing their job, along with dealing with profanity and being the targets of bottles. Darby said they also gave the dog that was with the police water because the pepper spray affected him.
“They made sure the area was as safe as it could be at a time like that, and since they were there they were also protecting our house,” Darby said.
Darby said even if it was just a small act of kindness, they tried to help them in any way they could.
He said the police were very appreciative and nice toward them and that he and his roommates apologized to the police plenty of times on behalf of KSC students.
“I honestly didn’t know one person who was in that riot or acting that way towards the cops,” Darby said, “Everyone I know was smart enough to stay away.”
Along with helping cops, KSC students also looked out for each other.
Bobby Graham, KSC Student Body President said, “We had been working with the night manager [of the L.P. Young Student Center], Scott, by running a safe house out of the student center. We locked all the doors besides one and wouldn’t let people in unless they went here or really needed help. There were a lot of people trying to come in, especially after they were tear gassed.”
There were about 15 people at a time rotating in and out of the safe house, according to Graham.
Graham said when things finally calmed down around midnight, he was walking someone home from the student center when the riots started to end.
This is when he got the idea for the clean up.
Graham said when he got back to the student center around 12:35 a.m. Sunday morning, “Everyone who was left in the student center, there was about five of us, we went right up to the offices and started putting it on social media and calling everyone we knew.”
Graham continued, “It was pretty incredible because we were only working on it for less than forty-five minutes before it exploded on social media.”
They posted to Yik Yak, Facebook, Twitter and made phone calls to get the word out, according to Graham.
Ryan Scrivano, student trustee, was also there for the planning of the clean up.
He was in the student center for safety when he went up on the third floor and saw people rioting in the parking lot and on campus around the student center.
“We knew we had to help this community because in the morning it was going to be a mess,” Scrivano said.
“By 10 [a.m.] there were a few hundred students that came out,” Graham said.
The grounds crew gave them buckets that were used for Pumpkin Lobotomy and rolling trash cans for garbage.
“I saw a lot of trash bags and I honestly have no idea where they came from, people just started bringing them out of their houses to use to clean up, people brought brooms and whatever they had to help,” Graham said.
Sara Bracken, a senior on the softball team, said, “Originally [Saturday night] we said we were going to clean up our yard and Davis Street. Before the night even began it was filthy.”
Bracken said she and some teammates started cleaning Davis St. around 9 a.m. before they had heard about the scheduled clean up.
“There were already so many people out there at 9 [a.m.], on [the] corner of Blake and Davis, sweeping and picking up garbage,” Bracken said.
When the team heard about the scheduled clean up from their athletic director, they met outside of Hoot ‘n’ Scoot.
“Every sports team, plus hundreds of students were out there cleaning when they could have been sleeping in on Pumpkin Fest weekend,” Bracken said.
Bracken said she and her group helped because, “None of us were a part of the rioting and we all felt extremely disgusted and embarrassed by the situation that we didn’t even hesitate when we thought about helping in the morning.”
“People that were there wanted to help, I saw people I would never expect to want to pick up trash just to show their respect for the school,” Bracken said.
Scrivano said, “Even though we didn’t do it we had to help out; it’s our town, we live here. They [rioters and visitors] can leave but it’s us who it’s going to impact. We didn’t do it for a political statement, we actually care about the town and wanted to feel as though we were contributing as a first step.”
Scrivano said within an hour-and-a-half of the clean up a large portion of the garbage was cleaned up in the community.
Amanda Guthorn said, “Students keep coming up and thanking us, shaking our hands, [Sunday] students dropped off a nice hand-written note and donuts and were hugging my staff.”
Now, in the wake of Pumpkin Fest, KSC students are looking to move forward.
President Huot said, “We are going to come through this even stronger, but we have to take this as an opportunity and to leverage it, and see the silver lining in the terrible things that happened, it’s a chance for you to stand up … and we’re going to work with you.”
Graham said, “People have been coming to me all week with ideas and rudimentary game plans on how we can restore our image.”
He said students are taking things into their own hands to make them happen.
“Everyone is really taking accountability for the pride they have in KSC — not just accepting it, but doing something about it,” Graham said.
KSC sophomore Nick Tornatore held his first meeting for “Peace for Keene,” his new organization, on Wednesday, Oct. 22.
There were about 55 people in attendance. In the future Tornatore will eventually hold concerts and fundraisers.
Tornatore said he aims to “try to raise vibration of this place [KSC] because energy is pretty low. I’m hoping to bring people together and create a space that we can all just come together and talk about what we want to do coming out from this.”
Tornatore said he advises people to “speak up. People have ideas and they’re afraid to speak them …[people] have ideas that could possibly change the life of this campus.”
Student Body President Graham explained, “Our motto is ‘Wisdom to Make a Difference’ and you can see everyone doing exactly that in the aftermath of what happened Saturday.”
Graham has plans to make every Friday “Red and White Day,” where students wear KSC colors to show school pride.
Nick Piro said, “This one event did not show our true colors, I think we’re going to rise above it and restore our name and our values.”
“We are Keene State, we’re the same college today as we were the Friday before all this; same teachers, same staff, same students, I don’t want them to lose sight of that. We’re not a worse college because of that, if anything we’ve taken that and become a better college,” Graham said.
Graham said he thinks KSC is a better college because students are taking initiative to make changes instead of relying on others.
“Passion, a lot of passion, can be derived from anger,” Graham said, “And we were very angry about what happened to our community, our home and everything we take pride in.”
Taylor Thomas can be contacted at tthomas@keene-equinox.com
