KENT: Friends of Martin Alvord say there were no warning signs. Absolutely nothing indicated the Kent State University senior was depressed in the hours, days or weeks leading up to Sunday afternoon, when Alvord walked to some railroad tracks and lay down before an oncoming freight train.
On Wednesday, those who thought they knew him well tried to set aside their grief and celebrate their memories of the 22-year-old soft-spoken, fun-loving art student.
Some 300 people, illuminated only by white taper candles, gathered in the chilly night air around “the rock” in the front of the KSU campus.
The huge boulder — for decades, spray-painted and adorned on an almost daily basis by student organizations and individuals — sported a fresh white canvas for students to write on.
“You were a glowing star in everyone’s life.”
“I’ll miss making dinner and our good laughs.”
“You changed my world.”
“Let your gentle spirit fly free.”
Alvord, a St. Vincent-St. Mary High School graduate, according to his Facebook page, transferred from the Cleveland Institute of Art to Kent State in his junior year to study visual communication design.
He roomed with Jake Kauffman at Olson Hall. Kauffman said Alvord was quiet at first, but eventually warmed up and revealed himself to be caring, fun and quick-witted.
The close-knit family at Olson called him “Marty,” a name he didn’t like. “But he said it would be OK for us to call him that. Just us,” said dorm neighbor Jake Corcoran Jr.
When Alvord and his Olson Hall friends were together, it usually called for a lot of friendly ribbing. Alvord could give as good as he got, Kauffman said.
“We all thought of ourselves as amateur stand-up comedians,” Kauffman said. And when Alvord started laughing, “It was hard to get him to stop,” he said.
But he had a serious, philosophical side as well.
This year, he shared a two-sided duplex on Ohio Avenue with several other students, including Kauffman, Corcoran and Nathan Edwards, all broadcast journalism majors. They called it “The Estate.”
Edwards said Alvord loved talking about what inspired him, especially as it related to his art.
“He would sit on the roof and look at the sky, looking for inspiration,” Edwards said. “Then he would come back inside and write stuff down.”
Whatever he wrote, he mostly kept to himself, Edwards said.
His peers admired his talent. Ultimately he wanted to work in graphic animation, Kauffman said.
He worked in the KSU athletic department, creating posters and other prominent designs. He juggled a few other design jobs, and often appeared stressed and overworked, though nothing out of the norm, they said.
Sometimes he would thrill his friends with an impromptu drawing, like the way he once created a detailed monkey with crayons.
“He could be random that way,” Corcoran said. “You never knew what to expect.”
That could also be said of Alvord’s actions on Sunday.
Alvord left his home that afternoon and followed a hike and bike trail to railroad tracks that run along Towner’s Woods park in Franklin Township.
Along the way, he carried a small handheld video recorder, speaking into it a final message for his family.
Portage County Sheriff’s Lt. Greg Johnson declined to share the contents of the video message out of respect for the family, but said Alvord’s decision to end his life had nothing to do with school, a woman, or drugs or alcohol.
It was also clear that Alvord knew his actions would come as a shock to his family and friends.
“Even in the video, he says no one knows I’m going to do this and I could have asked for help” but didn’t, Johnson said.
The conductor and engineer of the Norfolk Southern train saw Alvord, but the 8,500-ton train needed about a mile to stop.
“They locked up the brakes, but there’s nothing they can do,” Johnson said of the train employees, who were clearly distraught.
The sheriff’s office received the call at 3:42 p.m.
“Nobody saw this coming. Everyone described him as a really nice kid,” said Johnson, who found friends and family he interviewed to be “shell-shocked.”
Alvord had dinner with his father and brother the night before, Johnson said, and there was no indication that anything was wrong.
Alvord’s roommates were “numb” after sheriff investigators informed them Sunday of Alvord’s death.
“We all sat in the room for 20 minutes, just shaking our heads,” Corcoran said. “We didn’t know what to say.”
Wednesday night, they found their voice before the rock.
“This is a time now to celebrate his life,” Kauffman said. “This is when we stop to remember the good times.”
Added Corcoran: “There’s been this void, this emptiness since it happened. Tonight is the beginning of filling up that hole.”
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.