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 The White House later in the day said President Barack Obama, who
spoke out forcefully in favor of stricter gun control measures after
the massacre, planned to visit Roseburg on Friday to meet privately
with families of the victims.
Roseburg Mayor Larry Rich, a Republican and self-described supporter
of gun rights in the former timber community 180 miles (300 km)
south of Portland, said he welcomed the Democratic president to
visit when the White House called on Monday to ask whether Obama
should make the trip.
"I said, 'Yes, he should come here. He's our president and we would
love to have him here,'" the mayor said. He added that if there were
a funeral for any of the victims the day of Obama's visit, the
president would attend.
The first such service has been scheduled for Thursday, one week
after the killings, for Jason Johnson, 33, who was slain with seven
other students and their English professor by a troubled classmate.
 Nine more people were wounded in the rampage, which ended with the
gunman taking his own life.
Four days after the shooting spree, the campus of Umpqua Community
College was reopened to students and staff to allow them to retrieve
vehicles and other belongings left behind in the pandemonium of last
Thursday.
The reopening also was aimed at helping restore a sense of normalcy
on campus before classes and other activities at the college of some
13,000 students - about 3,000 enrolled full time - were set to
resume next Monday, school officials said.
The bucolic college, situated on a bend in the North Umpqua River,
was peaceful as staff and students milled about in the sunshine.
'ROAD TO RECOVERY'
But an atmosphere of trepidation prevailed among some of those
venturing to school on Monday.
"The anxiety of walking back on campus is very real," student Jared
Norman said in a text message to Reuters, adding that his campus
visit "begins the road to recovery."
Those arriving on Monday were greeted by teams of volunteers with
six golden retrievers from the national K-9 Comfort Dogs network run
by Lutheran Church Charities.
Emotions were readily apparent in the occasional hugs and tears
students and staff shared with one another across campus.
In an open letter published on Monday, faculty members expressed
gratitude for the community's support and vowed solidarity with
students struggling to comprehend the tragedy.
"We will learn some things with you this year that were not on the
syllabus," the letter said. "We don't know exactly what that will
look like yet, but we will learn about it together as we move
forward."
The college bookstore also reopened, and college staff converted a
portion of an outdoor amphitheater on campus into a shrine - adorned
with flowers, candles, balloons and the names of the fallen
professor and students, as well as a banner with the message: "UCC
Strong / We will prevail together."
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SCENE OF THE CRIME
A short distance away stood Snyder Hall, the brown, single-story,
tile-roofed building where last week's carnage unfolded, now partly
veiled behind a barrier of chain-link fencing and black tarp erected
around the crime scene.
Law enforcement was not readily visible in the center of campus, but
a mobile command post of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department
remained set up in the parking lot.
The sunny, quiet tranquility stood in stark contrast to the fear
that gripped the campus last Thursday in the midst of the deadliest
U.S. mass shooting in two years.
A gunman, Christopher Harper-Mercer, 26, stormed into his writing
class to shoot his professor, then began picking off cowering
classmates one at a time as he questioned them about their religion,
according to survivors' accounts.
Parents of two survivors revealed over the weekend that the
assailant had handed an envelope to one of the male students in the
class, whose life the suspect deliberately spared. CNN reported on
Sunday that the envelope contained a computer flash drive that was
turned over to authorities.
Authorities said Harper-Mercer, who moved from the Los Angeles
suburb of Torrance, California, to Oregon with his mother in 2013,
carried six guns and extra ammunition with him to campus the day of
the killings. Another eight firearms were found at the apartment
near campus where he lived with his mother, officials said.
Authorities have revealed little of what they may know about
Harper-Mercer's motives.
People who knew him casually have described Harper-Mercer as a
socially awkward loner. After a brief, failed stint in the U.S.
Army, he graduated from a nonprofit school that catered to students
with learning and emotional disabilities.
He was by all accounts preoccupied with guns, a passion he was
reported to have shared with his mother, who spent time with him at
target ranges.
The head of a private firearms academy in Torrance has said
Harper-Mercer sought to register for classes there in 2012 or 2013
but was turned away because he was found to be "weird" and overly
eager for high-level weapons training at his age.
(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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