Pacific Lutheran University Shaken by Random Fatal Shooting

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Students, faculty and staff are "shocked" and "stunned" in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of a popular Lutheran professor of music at Pacific Lutheran University (PLU), Tacoma, Wash., said the Rev. Dennis G. Sepper, a campus pastor at the school. PLU is one of 28 colleges and universities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
The victim, Dr. James D. Holloway, 40, was shot four times May 17 and died outside a campus dormitory, in what police say was a random shooting. The man whom police identified as the shooter turned the gun on himself after shooting Holloway, and died later the same day at Madigan Army Medical Center, Tacoma.
"Everyone is in grief because of the respect and love they had for Dr. Holloway," said Sepper. Sepper and his wife, the Rev. Nancy J. Connor, serve as ELCA campus ministers at the university, which has 3,500 students.
The shooter, identified as Donald Cowan, 55, placed a 16-page handwritten note beside Holloway detailing a plan to kill someone, said Lt. Dave Hall, Pierce County Sheriff's Department. Cowan apparently was angry at another university employee who was out of the country at the time of the shooting and vented his anger at Holloway, Hall said.
Cowan, who reportedly was heavily armed, had no other connection to the university, said Greg Brewis, a PLU spokesman.
"Students have lost a teacher. Faculty have lost a colleague. We have all lost a friend. God has lost a great and gifted servant," Dr. Loren J. Anderson, PLU president, said of Holloway.
Holloway, a member of Trinity Lutheran Church, Tacoma, was the ELCA congregation's director of music and worship for 10 years before leaving in 1999 to join the PLU faculty full-time, said Al Hokenstad, business administrator at Trinity. Holloway had taught courses part-time and performed at PLU while working at Trinity, he added.
At PLU, Holloway was university organist and professor of organ and church music. He was a studio teacher, musicologist and choral conductor. In addition, Holloway wrote about organ performance and church music and was a performer and lecturer at national and regional conventions of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, Organ Historical Society and American Guild of Organists.
In his role as university organist, Holloway performed at regular ELCA chapel services on the PLU campus, Sepper said. Holloway was also a mentor to student musicians who attended Sunday services there, he added.
Holloway was married to Dr. Judith Carr, PLU director of summer sessions and special academic programs, Brewis said. Carr is on sabbatical leave this year, he said. They had five children, Brewis added.
Funeral services and a memorial service will be scheduled for next week, Sepper said.
Following the mid-afternoon shooting, PLU officials gathered students and faculty together at Olson Auditorium to inform them of what had happened.
"This is a time when we need more than ever the strength that comes from God and each other," Anderson said at the gathering, according to The News Tribune, Tacoma.
A prayer vigil attended by students and faculty was held at Olson Auditorium later the same day. A wooden cross was placed at the spot of the shooting. Candles and other items were placed there in memory of Holloway, the News Tribune reported.
Information and support sessions were scheduled May 18 for students, faculty and staff. May 18 is the final day of classes; final exams scheduled for next week will proceed as planned, Brewis said.
"When a tragedy like this occurs, we are all reminded how fragile and vulnerable we are as individuals and as communities," said Dr. Leonard G. Schulze, executive director, ELCA Division for Higher Education and Schools, Chicago. "Let us join with the people of Pacific Lutheran as they support one another in prayer and the fellowship of Christ."
A number of area clergy, mostly from ELCA congregations, are helping the university respond to students, faculty and staff, Sepper said.
The May 17 shooting compounded an earlier tragedy involving the PLU community in February, Sepper said. In that incident, Monica Lightell, a PLU freshman, died when a deck collapsed on her at an off-campus party.

Additional information is at http://www.plu.edu/home-4.shtml on the Pacific Lutheran University Web site.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html