News-Record.com

Saturday's No. 2 editorial.

Eve Carson's hometown newspaper, the Athens Banner-Herald, described her as brilliant, without arrogance; beautiful, without vanity; and generous, without self-importance.
Her murder Wednesday in Chapel Hill, where she attended the University of North Carolina as a Morehead Scholar, unleashed torrents of grief from Chancellor James Moeser to the thousands of fellow students who gathered to remember her Thursday.

The unexplained crime shocked the close-knit UNC and Chapel Hill communities where shootings are still relatively rare. Sadly, images of the safe, small-town atmosphere older alumni cherish now must be updated in the wake of this tragic event. Few places are insulated from the culture of violence that pervades our society today.

The irony is that Carson's studies took her to Egypt, Ghana, Cuba and Ecuador, places where safety concerns might deter other young travelers. Yet it was only a mile from her own campus where she met deadly danger.

The 22-year-old Carson seemed fearless, even joyful, in all her ventures. She spent a summer helping deliver babies in South America and pitching in with farm chores for her host family, and celebrated those experiences in a moving multimedia presentation called “The Gifts of Poverty.” She taught science to elementary schoolchildren in Chapel Hill, volunteered for countless worthy causes and hoped to go to medical school. Last year, she was elected student body president. “I really think one could say she was the most popular student on campus,” a friend told The Daily Tar Heel.

Although a native of Georgia, Carson enriched UNC and maybe would have made her home in North Carolina. Her death marks a grievous loss for her family, friends, university and all those she might have touched in a long lifetime. A vicious, irrational crime has caused a world of harm.