Killeen, a Town Deep in Mourning, Holds Prayer Services and Vigils for Its Victims : Massacre: The Texas community ponders that ordinary day and the ordinary people who were gunned down in the shooting rampage.

Theirs were the faces and stories of small-town America.

Friday’s obituary page of the Killeen Daily Herald listed 10 of them, and nine contained this statement as the last sentence: “died Wednesday in the shootings at Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen.”

In all, 22 people were shot and killed before gunman George Jo Hennard took his own life, giving this town the dark legacy of being the site of the nation’s worst shooting rampage.

Each of those killed made the seemingly innocuous decision to have lunch that day at the town’s newest cafeteria.

Some came from nearby businesses and towns to stand in line at the popular restaurant and select their lunch. An Army colonel came with his friends. A woman on her way to Waco pulled off the highway for a meal.

One man tried to stop Hennard from his deadly rampage, only to be killed himself. And when his wife had to choose between fleeing to safety or going to her mortally wounded husband, she chose the latter, only to be killed herself.

Now this town is deep in mourning.

Texas Gov. Ann Richards came to Killeen on Friday and attended a prayer service at the First Baptist Church.

“Killeen, Tex., is a tough little town,” she said. “It has lived through some extremely difficult times. The way the people have pulled through in this awful tragedy gives us real hope in the human spirit and in the ability of people to rebound. They’re going to be living with this for a long time.”

Several other churches opened their doors Friday and held prayer vigils.

It also was homecoming at the high school, and pep rallies and the Friday night football game went on as scheduled despite the mourning.

“It’s our opinion that we need to go on with life as usual,” Killeen High School Principal Corbett Lawler said Friday.

About 3,000 fans filled the stands for Friday night’s homecoming game between Killeen High School and Pflugerville. Before the game, senior class president David Swift prayed for the victims and their families.

“The tragedy in Killeen affected the lives of all of us, but we are thankful for the lives that were spared and thankful for all of us to be here on this special night,” Swift said.

Killeen, which owes much of its prosperity to the nearby Ft. Hood Army base, has been burdened before.

The Persian Gulf War sent thousands of troops from here to the Middle East, leaving behind thousands of spouses and children. Special counseling teams were set up then to help handle the trauma of a loved one going off to war. Those same teams are being set up again because of the cafeteria massacre.

Killeen is still festooned with signs pledging support for the troops in Operation Desert Storm. And for all the anxiety created by months in the Saudi desert, 11 people from here were killed in the war--half the death toll from Wednesday’s rampage.

Charles Patterson, superintendent of the Killeen public schools, likened the Gulf War and the shootings at Luby’s to a “roller coaster ride” for the community. But the Rev. Jimmy Towers, pastor of the First Baptist Church, said there was a distinct difference between the two events.

“With Desert Storm, the community had some lead time, some preparation time,” he said.

Community leaders, however, said that the crisis of Desert Storm had served them well for the most recent tragedy.

“We sent 26,000 to Desert Storm,” Mayor Pro Tem Fred Latham said. “In that time period we banded together as a community.”

As the chaos and confusion of the last few days have subsided, the victims of Hennard’s shooting spree are no longer just names being released on the police casualty lists.

There is Michael Griffith, 48, of nearby Copperas Cove, a veterinarian who was finishing surgery when his friend Kirby Lock walked through the door.

“It looks like you already have a date,” said Lock, because Griffith’s wife, Karee, had stopped by the office. But Karee had other things to do, and the two men drove the 10 miles to Killeen for a special lunch at Luby’s.

“It’s not usual that Mike gets to go to lunch,” Karee said. “He’s usually too busy.”

Less than an hour later, Griffith was dead and Lock was seriously wounded. The Griffiths were supposed to break ground next week on a new house for themselves and two of their three children who are still at home.

Karee and the children now have decided to let some time pass--and to select another design for a new home. “I couldn’t build that house now,” she said.

Pat Carney, a school district administrator, met her husband, Sam, for lunch on Wednesday. She became a target for the gunman, but he did not.

Two other school administrators, Nancy Stansbury and Ruth Pujol, took their supervisor to lunch that day, paying for the meal because it was Boss’s Day. Both of them were killed by Hennard, and their supervisor, James Swift, was critically wounded.

Bob Massey, a school district spokesman, said that in places such as Killeen the impact of the killings cut a wide swath.

“These people who died or were injured, they were all friends and associates of ours,” Massey said. “You either knew them or a family member. You’ve been in settings with lots of these people.”

The names go on. Sylvia King was in a hurry Wednesday, so she made the five-minute drive to Luby’s. Debra Gray and Su-Zann Rashott drove over from their jobs at TU Electric Co. All three women were killed by Hennard.

Michael Dody had no idea Friday why his father, Army Lt. Col. Steven Dody, chose Luby’s as the place where he and some friends would have their lunch Wednesday.

Steven Dody, the airfield commander at Ft. Hood, was a decorated Vietnam War veteran who had helped keep the planes flying to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. And then he went to have lunch. He was one of the victims.

“It was just the place they decided to go to that day,” Michael Dody said, summing up the tragedy of Killeen.