It was a solemn scene at the South Carolina Statehouse on Tuesday night, as hundreds of USC students gathered to mourn the recent death of Clemson University student, Tucker Hipps. Hipps, whose body was found along the shoreline of Lake Hartwell on Monday night, had numerous friends at South Carolina, and the rivalry between the two schools was forgotten as friends and family of the student remembered his life together.
Hipps graduated in 2013 from Wren High School in Piedmont, South Carolina, and was a sophomore at Clemson. He was on an early morning run with his fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, and did not return to the breakfast scheduled for afterwards. Though there has been no official statement concerning the cause of death, speculations suggest that hazing was involved.
With such a strong Greek Life presence here at South Carolina, a vigil was overwhelmingly called for, along with wearing orange on the school grounds for the day.
It’s events like these that remind people that there are more important things in life than rivalries and football games; that in the end, we are all members of the same state, and the love that we have for each other as human beings should hold a higher value than anything else.