The Shippensburg University chapter of Turning Point USA held a vigil for founder Charlie Kirk on Thursday, Sept. 18. The vigil featured speeches from three state congressmen and garnered a large turnout.

The vigil filled Old Main to capacity, with the overflow crowd being ushered into Stewart Hall. Inside Stewart, there was additional seating that set up to watch a livestream of the event.

When there still were not enough seats, attendees were left to gather around phone screens to watch the event outside, and other attendees stood holding trans and Palestinian flags in protest. Police officers from Pennsylvania State Police, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department and Shippensburg University Police Department stood by patrolling with the help of drones. 

“I decided to come out and protest this vigil because of some of the things that Charlie Kirk has said, some of the things that he stood for,” said Karmen Alasana. “He has advocated for the deaths of trans people like me; he’s advocated for the deaths of many people.”

Also among the group protesting the vigil, was Kara Wilson of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, a new campus group that formed this semester in response to the changing nature of politics.

“In light of the election and a lot of events politically, like ICE kidnapping people and taking them from their homes, and the government ignoring,” said Wilson, who explained the reasons behind the group’s founding and her attending the protest tonight.

Inside, the vigil was opened with words and prayers for Kirk that were presided over by Joel Gillman of Mission Hill Church of Chambersburg before the featured speakers took to the podium.

The first speaker of the night was Sen, Greg Rothman (R-34), who recounted the first time he ever met Kirk.

“Well, I met Charlie Kirk when he was 18 years old in Tampa at the Republican National Convention,” said Rothman. “When he approached a youthful friend of ours who had become a friend of his and asked him for a large sum of money to support his cause and told him that he was not going to go to college, but he said he was going to go and change the college campus and change the college.”

There is a “theological principle that if you have a soul, then you should also have a voice,” said Rothman. “And if you should have a voice, then you should be allowed to express that voice, speak out loud. And that’s why our Founding Fathers created the First Amendment to our Bill of Rights.”

Rothman, like many who have paid respects to Kirk since his murder on Sept. 10 at the campus of Utah Valley University, honored Kirk for his Christian faith and dedication to free speech and debate.

“[The Founding Fathers] understood how important it was to recognize not that we need debate, which we do,” said Rothman. “Not that we need to be allowed to worship and live out our faiths and our daily lives, which we do, not that we need a free press, which of course we do, but that all that came back to the fact that your rights in terms of God, your rights to speak, to debate, to be heard, I always agree with, come from God, and that’s proof of your soul.”

David Boatwright, president of the sociology and anthropology club at Shippensburg, believes these invocations of free speech ring hollow with recent events like the broadcaster ABC canceling “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

“So, it’s a little ironic that a party founded upon small government and government not being involved in everyday lives is now using the FCC and other government organizations to slowly police and control the media through intimidation and other tactics by demanding Jimmy Kimmel apologize and make a sizable donation to Turning Point USA,” said Boatwright. “Let’s call a spade a spade.”

The most prominent speaker of the night was former gubernatorial candidate and current Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-33), who honored the impact Kirk had on youth activism for the Right and, like Rothman, called him a martyr.

Mastriano honored Gen Z for “taking the red pill, not the blue pill,” a popular analogy for choosing reality over fiction that originates from “The Matrix” series of movies.

“That’s the generation Charlie really responded to,” Mastriano said of Gen Z. “You’re more conservative than my generation. It’s amazing. You’re more pro-life. Not only are you more conservative, you’re more pro-life than my generation.”

Is this reflected in TPUSA’s membership numbers? According to Chapter President Kellyn Weber’s closing statements, it is.

“Since Charlie’s death, our chapter has grown immensely, from 20 members to over a hundred,” Weber announced to cheers from the crowd. “That’s not just numbers, it’s legacy. That’s the light we light in each of us, each and every day, Charlie.”

Briana Garbanzo, the Shippensburg TPUSA secretary, says that interest began before Kirk’s killing.

She says that their first appearance at the campus activities fair garnered interest from around 50 people, but after Kirk was shot, support came pouring in.

“We went from having 100 followers on the Instagram to I think like 400,” Garbanzo said.

The final speaker of the night before closing comments from the campus TPUSA leadership was Rep. Rob Kauffman (R-89). He recounted learning of Kirk from his young son, who would watch his show. He too honored Kirk as a Martyr.

“Charlie Kirk, there’s no doubt about it, is a martyr,” Kauffman said. I heard a quote from him last week that when a tyrant is killed, he is relented, but when a martyr is killed, he begins again.”

When the event was let out, attendees congregated outside and placed battery-operated candles and flowers at a memorial for Kirk outside the entrance to Old Main. Some joined together to sing “Amazing Grace,” while others gathered for conversations.

One of those people out congregating was Gigi Schwartzman, who grew up in Guyana, before immigrating to the United States. Now residing in Hanover, Pennsylvania, she attended the vigil tonight with her sister-in-law, who attends SU. 

She says she was drawn to Kirk because of his traditional Christian views on family.

“I’m a wife. I’m a Christian woman. And [Kirk’s message] just sat well with me because he wanted to instill the core value of family,” Schwartzman said. [America] has lost its core values. Back in the day, a wife stayed home and raised seven kids, and a man provided on $40.”

“They were a lot happier than people who have millions of dollars today,” she added.

Kirk was laid to rest in Glendale, Arizona on Sunday.

Additional reporting by Evan Dillow.

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