The Son Also Rises, at Virginia Tech

By: Joe Strupp During his 38 years at The Washington Post, Leonard Shapiro has covered numerous major events, including Super Bowls ? but he never encountered the kind of assignment his son, Taylor, had to follow one week in April.

The younger Shapiro, a sophomore at Virginia Tech, was among the journalists for the university's Collegiate Times who garnered national attention for breaking stories on the deadly shootings and the aftermath at his campus.

For the elder Shapiro, who lives in Middleburg, Va. (his wife, Vicky Moon, also worked at the Post), watching his son cover the tragedy combined pride and the concern that any parent would feel after their child came so close to a mass murder: "I just told him to go where the story is, and he has done it all on his own."

Taylor Shapiro, 20, says, "I have inherently soaked in what he's taught me." Specifically, he praises his father's resourcefulness, which he tried to emulate that terrible week: "He has always been good at getting into contact with people who are not usually willing to speak."