The text came from his father: “Did you see what happened to Charlie?”
When the news broke on Sept. 10 that conservative activist Charlie Kirk had been assassinated while speaking in Utah, Jordan Massey was in the library at Liberty University, where he had just started his freshman year. A graduate of Central High School in Woodstock, Massey had spent years watching Kirk’s videos, quizzing his family over dinner about American history and even reviving the Turning Point USA chapter at Central.
“At first, I thought he meant somebody else in our family named Charlie,” Massey said. “Then I looked it up, and it was like — no way. The initial shock was disbelief. I really couldn’t believe it. And then it hit: this man I’d followed for years, my hero, was gone.”
For Massey, Kirk’s death wasn’t just the loss of a public figure. It was personal. And in Shenandoah County, as in conservative communities across the country, it set off a wave of grief that quickly spilled beyond politics and into something deeper.
From grief to revival
The shock of Kirk’s assassination has not only stirred grief among young conservatives but has also ignited a fusion of faith and activism that feels less like politics and more like revival. For students who started Turning Point USA clubs in local schools, young mothers leading prayer walks and college freshmen who had hoped to see Kirk in person, his death has become a catalyst.
They describe a newfound urgency to speak openly about their beliefs, to gather in small groups, and to treat politics as an extension of their spiritual lives. It’s a movement still raw with loss, but one that, in their words, has given them conviction and hunger to carry Kirk’s example forward.
Massey had been planning to see Kirk in person this fall at a debate at Virginia Tech. Instead, he and his mother, Amy Massey, boarded a plane to Arizona to attend Kirk’s memorial.
“Everyone told me it was too scary. The cost of flights doubled, the hotels were full, and being around 90,000 people felt unsafe,” Amy Massey said. “But I knew we had to go. To see Jordan’s face there — it was the most amazing experience of our lives.”
At Turning Point’s headquarters, Jordan Massey walked through rows of flowers and hand-written tributes. At the stadium service, he joined tens of thousands in worship. What he remembers most vividly was the moment when the crowd lifted signs that read “Well done, good and faithful servant” as violins played.
“I just sort of felt a hunger to go out and do more and to become more as he really instructed me to do,” Massey said.
That hunger, he added, took root years earlier. He first discovered Kirk in middle school.
“He could articulate his thoughts so well,” Massey said of Kirk. “He was calm, he didn’t lash out. That really stood out to me.”
By high school, Massey was restarting Central’s dormant Turning Point USA chapter with his friends Bruce Mitchell and Ryan Rager.
“We wanted to keep it faith based. We merged conservative values into it as well, but we primarily kept faith at the forefront,” Massey said.
His proudest moment was drawing nearly 40 students to a meeting with a Turning Point speaker.
“For the 30 minutes we had during that day, everybody was listening. Everybody was giving her and us their full attention,” he said. “That was just really inspiring to see.”
A movement beyond politics
The ripple effects of Kirk’s death have been felt throughout the Shenandoah Valley. In Woodstock, Grace Elizabeth Hitt organized a march the weekend after his death, drawing about 100 people.
“This is something we have never had to face before,” Hitt said. “Something we never would have imagined would have happened to a Christian, a family man, an advocate. A lot of my friends are his age, have young families and are Christians. It’s hitting so deep for many because we see ourselves in his family.”
Hitt said she had long feared being too vocal might alienate clients in her real estate work. Kirk’s death changed that.
“My love for the Lord should never be conditional,” she said. “Although it has been difficult to work through, it’s called a lot of us to profess our love for Jesus Christ even louder and stand up for our conservative views.”
Willie Deutsch, a Stephens City resident who organized a Sept. 17 memorial in Winchester that brought more than 500 people out, said the response has been less about politics and more about faith.
“We’ve seen more people just interested in praying, reading scripture, attending church over the last five days than the political side,” Deutsch said. “I’ve had people reaching out asking what they should do to start reading their Bible or where they should go to church.”
Nicole Marie Wentz, a mother of five in Woodstock, described herself as an outspoken conservative but not a devoted follower of Kirk. His death changed something in her, too.
“I don’t get sad about public figures being killed or dying, I just don’t. Something — and I know this to be true for many people — hit hard about this. I feel it in my soul. Thousands of people are suddenly giving their lives to Jesus,” Wentz said. “I haven’t opened my Bible in a few years, and now I feel compelled to. Especially to read through it with my kids.”
Wentz said she has been targeted with hostile messages since posting about her involvement in the Woodstock march, but she has chosen not to argue back. It’s not how she would have handled it before. It’s another shift she has noticed in herself.
“My hopes for this are for everyone to realize this is no longer a left vs. right issue. It’s us vs. them. It’s good vs. evil,” she said. “There’s a fire burning in me for the evil that prevails the earth more so than ever.”
Ripple effects
On the political side, local leaders also describe a surge of energy. Kyle Gutshall, vice chair of the Shenandoah County School Board and a candidate for the Board of Supervisors, said Kirk had been uniquely important for young voters who consume their news online.
“That’s why we’ve seen so many young people really distraught by this whole thing,” Gutshall said. “They looked up to the guy and agreed with what he was saying.”
Gutshall said he has noticed “interest and urgency” among young conservatives who might not have been politically active before.
“You’re going to see a lot more involvement from young conservative people,” Gutshall said. “Not just in Shenandoah County. This is going to be a nationwide thing.”
Kennedy Whetzel — an Edinburg native, Central graduate and now president of the largest Turning Point chapter in the country at Liberty University — said her campus group has gained more than 400 members since Kirk’s death.
“Charlie’s assassination woke up an entire generation,” Whetzel said. “I’ve had high school students reach out to me about how to start a chapter at their school, college students ask how they can get involved, parents asking how they can get involved, even businesses wanting to know how they can help and contribute.”
According to Whetzel, more than 121,000 high school and college students nationwide have reached out to start chapters since Sept. 10.
“Charlie said that where dialogue ends, violence begins,” Whetzel added. “We must continue his movement and honor his legacy, and it starts with simply having conversations.”
Not every young conservative has been inspired to fly to Arizona or join large gatherings. For Ryan Rager, who helped Massey restart Central’s Turning Point club, it’s meant something more ordinary but perhaps just as important: deep conversations.
“As a paleoconservative, I disagreed with Charlie on major issues within the Republican Party,” Rager said. “But seeing conservatives, libertarians and moderates unite in the aftermath of his death made me realize we have something much bigger here.”
For Massey, that unity circles back to faith. Hours after Kirk was killed, he and his roommate Bruce Mitchell turned on praise music in their dorm room and prayed.
“We’re going to see Charlie again. His family is going to see Charlie again. God has a purpose in it,” Massey said. “With Charlie’s death, there’s going to be millions who turn to Christ, millions who have their eyes opened and truly just start to live life in new ways.”
That shift — from grief to conviction — is what Massey hopes will endure.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people who have said they are realizing that they have not really been living like a Christian and they are going to change their ways,” he said. “A lot of people are waking up to that, especially myself and my roommate. We’re realizing now that we have an obligation to live better.”