Dave Paisley

“I’m here to support the future of our country because they finally seem to have a voice, because I have a daughter who’s starting high school. I was in the physics and astronomy department in 1991 when right here on this very campus we had a school shooting. I knew most of the people who were involved and it’s been too long since then and 39 days is too long. A day is too long. How do you stay silent? You can’t. For me, it’s personal. On many levels. I’ve been sick for two days and I came down because it doesn’t matter how you feel … this is way more important than any of that. For so long, and again a lot of the speeches, it gets talked about all the time and nothing seems to happen. Now finally, it seems like there’s momentum and it’s not stopping. Back when it happened, a little over 26 years ago, we didn’t have social media and text messaging. I didn’t even know it actually happened. I just left the building and I got to my house and my phone was ringing. It was my grandma trying to find out if I was still alive. And that’s how I found out. Now it seems like there’s more power, more of a voice and my god, I never want it to stop, I never want it to be silenced. [This has] given me more hope than I’ve had in a long, long time.” -Dave Paisley, University of Iowa alumni