"I heard all the sirens and all that stuff," he told The Maui News. "I just think it was tragic. It was surreal."

Mailem, a former Kahului resident, graduated from Virginia Tech in December 2003 with a bachelor of arts degree in studio art. He works as an operations manager at Virginia Tech's Dietrick Dining Center, and someday he wants to own his own restaurant in Hawaii.

In a phone interview Monday night, Mailem said he was supposed to have started work at noon Monday but he didn't report in until 2 p.m., when authorities gave an "all-clear" signal for the 2,600-acre campus.

At work, fellow employees discussed the shooting.

They talked about "how unbelievable it was that it could happen in a small town like this," he said, describing Blacksburg as a college town smaller than Kahului. "Things like this just happen in the big city."

Making his way home after work, the campus was eerily calm, Mailem said.

"It was surreal. It was so quiet," he said, adding that the campus normally would be bustling with students enjoying the first days of spring.

"There wasn't that many people walking around," he said.

Mailem said that when he was a student at the school a few years ago, he took classes in Norris Hall, the building where most of the killings took place.

He said authorities had not released the names of any of the people killed, and he wasn't aware if he knew any of the victims.

He is the son of Kahului resident Catalino Mailem, a water supply coordinator for Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. Lance Mailem graduated from Maui High School in 1998.