Kirk support at USU continues to grow in year after his death

OREM — Kaitlin Griffiths and Ethan Harper were among the students from Utah State University who joined organizers and volunteers at Utah Valley University on Thursday, ahead of a memorial service for conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The two, who serve as president and vice president, respectively, of their Turning Point USA chapter in Logan, said it was important for them to help set up for the event. Organizers stopped the work to set up for the service momentarily at around 12:23 p.m., the same moment when Kirk was assassinated on the UVU campus.

"It's super meaningful being able to help other people honor Charlie's memory," Griffiths said. "And be able to come together as a group of people who want to cherish his life and what he did for this movement."

More than a year ago, Griffiths worked to organize a TPUSA event at the USU campus. Back then, the chapter membership sat at around 50. Today, it's more than 250. She said many people called to volunteer for the event that would go on without Kirk, with many joining the cause as well.

"It was a super uniting moment for everyone in the conservative movement," Griffiths said. "Obviously it was such a terrible thing that happened. It's so sad that it had to come to that to get people to start caring about politics and want to get involved, but a lot of good came out of it. A lot of Charlie's legacy, carrying on, and that's exactly what he would have wanted to come out of his death."

Harper was among those who would soon join the ranks of the TPUSA chapter at USU.

"I've always been interested in politics but never involved at all," he explained. "Afterwards I was definitely more invested in it."

Harper said he had a ticket to attend Kirk's event at UVU, but didn't go, thinking that he'd soon come to USU anyway. In the weeks after the tragedy, his involvement grew in a way that he said likely would not have happened otherwise.

"It started with Turning Point and college Republicans," Harper recalled. "And since then we've done planned protests. I've done tons of events, speaking things (and) voter registrations, just things that I'd never thought that I would be able to go help out with. But now I've been given this opportunity to just go and help out more."

Related topics