Va. Students Burned in Fire Saluted at Graduation

HAMPDEN-SYDNEY, Va. -- Kirk Rohle chose not to wear the neck-to-toes covering for his burned skin during his graduation ceremony. He no longer has to wear it every day, he said, and "I didn't want to draw attention to myself."

That didn't work out too well.

Rohle and fellow senior Ben Rogers were the focus Sunday at historic Hampden-Sydney College.

Speaker Verne Lundquist, the veteran CBS television sports broadcaster, celebrated their story in his commencement remarks. And the pair was called up to the stage and saluted after all the other graduates and graduation candidates had been recognized.

Each time, they drew standing ovations from fellow seniors, faculty and the crowd of friends and parents in the dappled sunlight beneath the trees in front of 187-year-old Venable Hall.

On Jan. 25, Rohle was hospitalized in critical condition with his burns -- second- and third-degree over most of his body -- after he went back in to a burning college residence house trying to find Rogers. The two of them were H-SC football teammates and had been fast friends since they were children in their Mechanicsville neighborhood.

Rogers emerged from the fire on his own with relatively minor burns. Rohle, after searching inside the flaming house as long as he could, escaped by jumping out a window.

Rogers has been Rohle's aide-de-camp throughout his recovery, bringing class assignments to the Rohle at the VCU Medical Center's burn unit, posting Facebook reports about his progress through multiple surgeries, assisting after his return to campus in March.

Urging the about-to-graduate seniors to take risks and be selfless, Lundquist briefly recounted the story of Rohle's willingness to re-enter a flaming house to search for his friend.

"It was an incredible act of love, of courage and brotherhood," he said.

The crowd rose and applauded.

The college conferred bachelor's degrees on 211 graduates and recognized 14 more candidates for graduation who have nearly finished their requirements. Rohle and Rogers, their senior year interrupted by the fire, are each a few credits short and expect to be done by June.

H-SC President Christopher B. Howard called the two of them up last -- Rogers had already crossed the stage once to accept the prestigious Gammon Cup for service to the college -- and the crowd erupted in applause and huzzahs again.

Howard then told the gathering he had decided to scrap his final remarks "because the embodiment of everything that is right about Hampden-Sydney College just walked across this stage."

Afterward, Rohle and Rogers stood with family, posing for the obligatory photos, exchanging hugs with well-wishers. The skin on the back of Rohle's hands was an angry red, a reminder of his injuries and the likelihood of more surgery to ameliorate some of the worst scarring.

Only a little more than two weeks earlier, Rohle had been through another medical trauma -- an emergency appendectomy. "That's over," he said. "I'm feeling good. Stick around, I think I'm going to win the lottery next."

A biology major, Rohle said the college has given him more than classroom knowledge. "Life lessons," he said. "That's what's going to take me farther than academics. This community rises to greatness, whatever the obstacle."

His mother, Amy Rohle, said Hampden-Sydney has been all that a mother could ask for and makes her glad that a younger son, Shreve Rohle, is a student at the all-male college. "The camaraderie and support has been amazing," she said. "You couldn't ask for them to be at a better place."

Lundquist, who was declared an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by the college, continued to muse about the two friends after the ceremony was over,

"It's an almost biblical story," he said. "On this campus, and everywhere the story is told, people stand in awe and admiration. I don't want to be too theological about it, but it's like a parable."

Copyright 2012 - Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service