It is an event not commonly known at Penn State, a place where residents come and go in four-year cycles. Few have any idea that the lawn most students walk past every day was once the scene of a violent shooting.

Now the only physical reminder of the Penn State shooting on the HUB-Robeson Center lawn is a tree that stands outside Simmons Hall to commemorate the place Melanie Spalla, 19, lived before her life was cut tragically short.

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the HUB-Robeson Center lawn shooting, when State College resident Jillian Robbins, 19, opened fire with a high-power military rifle, killing one student and injuring another.

Spalla, of Altoona, was a junior majoring in journalism when she was hit in the back by one of Robbins' bullets.

Nicholas Mensah, of Philadelphia, was hit in his left abdomen, and Kerry Butler and Bill Mocker were also shot at but not injured when bullets grazed their backpacks. Both Butler and Mocker were unaware of how close they had come to death until they returned to their homes that night.

Mocker, who was in his first month at Penn State as a freshman, lived in Atherton Hall and was walking to his morning class when he heard shots.

He saw Spalla fall over but was not sure if it was because of gunshots, so he headed to class, warning people to stay away from the lawn, he said.

"People looked at me like I was crazy," Mocker added.

After going with a friend to give a witness statement to University Police, Mocker went back to his room, where "everyone was going crazy," he said.

Mocker said he and his friend jokingly decided to check their backpacks and jackets to make sure there were not any bullet holes.

That's when Mocker found a bullet hole straight through the side of his backpack.

"I just screamed, 'Oh my God!' really loud," he said.

It is possible that more students would have died or been injured that day if Brendon Malovrh had not spotted Robbins hiding in the bushes and disarmed her.

Malovrh was recognized for wrestling the 7-millimeter Mauser sniper rifle away from Robbins, who then attempted to knife him, but stabbed herself instead.

An Army Reserve dropout, Robbins testified at her trial that she had planned on killing only herself that day.

Ten years later, the people directly involved with the shooting have scattered.

Robbins is serving 30 to 60 years at the State Correctional Institute in Muncy.

Malovrh works at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. Mensah, who was formerly from Philadelphia, and the Spalla family could not be located.

Mocker moved to Pittsburgh, married his college sweetheart and had a child, who is now one year old.

Mocker said he was fortunate that the event did not mess up his classes or schoolwork, but he was disappointed with the way Penn State handled the crisis.

Mocker's mother did not receive any notification about the incident, which Mocker thinks should have been an obligation of the university.

Penn State President Graham Spanier, who had been working as the university president for about a year when the shooting occurred, wrote in an e-mail message that he was proud of how the community responded in the aftermath.

"The initial reaction on campus was one of heightened anxiety, sadness, and grief," he wrote. "Staff mobilized quickly to make sure the campus was secure and provide extra communications services so that students could call home to assure family they were safe and accounted for."

Spanier added that the university held regular news conferences and supplied counseling for students.

"Penn State has good operational protocols in place for handling emergencies, but fortunately we rarely have to use them because the overall level of safety on campus is high," he said.

Unfortunately, college campus shootings have not become extinct since 1996.

On Wednesday, a gunman entered a Montreal college cafeteria and opened fire, killing one and injuring 19, before being killed by police. Witnesses described the shooter as a trenchcoat-clad man with a scowl and a Mohawk haircut.

Five Duquesne University basketball players were shot early yesterday morning during an apparently random shooting. According to police, the shooter was upset after a campus dance and when the players attempted to calm the man down, they were shot.

--The Associated Press contributed to this report.