{"id":63914,"date":"2011-01-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/tucson-twins-volunteered-in-giffords-office-while-dealing-with-aftermath-attack\/"},"modified":"2011-01-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T00:00:00","slug":"tucson-twins-volunteered-in-giffords-office-while-dealing-with-aftermath-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2011\/01\/tucson-twins-volunteered-in-giffords-office-while-dealing-with-aftermath-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Tucson Twins Volunteered In Giffords\u2019 Office While Dealing With Aftermath Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 January 21,2011 – 溏心vlog免费B站 political science majors Tristany and Kirsten Leikem flew home to Arizona for the winter break and were watching their younger sister, Lyndsay, play basketball in Phoenix on Jan. 8 when text message alerts sounded on their cell phones. There had been a shooting in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson, their hometown. U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was among the victims.<\/p>\n


\nThe sisters found a television nearby and watched and waited for news. Finally, breaking news came across the screen. Giffords had been reported dead.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt was so traumatic for us,\u201d said Kirsten, who along with Tristany had interned in Giffords\u2019 busy Tucson office last summer, where the rule was no phone should ring more than twice.<\/p>\n


\nThe TV broadcaster interrupted and apologized. Giffords was not dead, but she was wounded critically at an open meeting she was holding with local residents. Information about other victims was sketchy. <\/p>\n


\nThe sister\u2019s worried as they drove back to Tucson. They learned that 19 people were shot, six fatally. While they had interacted with Giffords a few times in Arizona, the congresswomen had been in her Washington, D.C. office for most of their internship. But the sisters had gotten to know Giffords\u2019 staffers very well.<\/p>\n


\nThey were devastated when they learned 30-year-old Gabriel \u201cGabe\u201d Zimmerman, community outreach director for Giffords, was among the victims who had been murdered.


\n\u201cThe congresswoman\u2019s staff were amazing people,\u201d Tristany said. \u201cThe spotlight has been on the congresswoman, and rightly so. But I don\u2019t want people to ever forget someone like Gabe. He was really special.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWhen Giffords\u2019 office re-opened, the twins volunteered their services. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt was chaotic, with the press and the public,\u201d said Kirsten, noting a memorial filled with flowers, notes and other memorabilia had been created outside the congresswoman\u2019s office. \u201cAlthough this memorial was large, as was the one in the Safeway parking lot, there were many smaller memorials created throughout the Tucson area. People crowded into the office with prayers and thoughts for the congresswoman\u2019s recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe 溏心vlog免费B站 twins handed them blank sheets of white paper and asked them to express their thoughts. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter they were able to do this, the people seemed to feel better,\u201d Kirsten said. \u201cThey felt like they had made a contribution.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe twins \u2013 members of the 溏心vlog免费B站 women\u2019s tennis team \u2013 returned to campus this week for practice. The juniors are key members of the squad, starting in both singles and doubles for the Rams.<\/p>\n


\nWhen asked if her future career plans had changed since the shooting, Kirsten, a political science and economics double major, said she had always thought of eventually becoming a U.S. Senator, but now she realizes she wants to go into public policy. Her sister has also altered her plans. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cI never thought about going into public service, but now I am thinking about going into it,\u201d said Tristany, a political science and journalism major double major. \u201cI know I want to go to law school and perhaps become a senator. Who knows? It\u2019s a long time from now.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n
\n*Image from SearchNetMedia\n\t<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 January 21,2011 – 溏心vlog免费B站 political science majors Tristany and Kirsten Leikem flew home to Arizona for the winter break and were watching their younger sister, Lyndsay, play basketball in Phoenix on Jan. 8 when text message alerts sounded on their cell phones. There had been a shooting in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63918,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}