Updated at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025.
More than 7,000 people filled Colorado State University’s Canvas Stadium in Fort Collins Thursday evening as students and community members attended the vigil of Charlie Kirk hosted by Turning Point USA.
The event was meant to feature Kirk’s famed “prove me wrong” debate-style forum on the Colorado State University campus. The conservative activist was fatally shot last week while speaking at Utah Valley University. That event was the first stop on his national American Comeback Tour. CSU was the next stop.
Ahead of the evening’s events, a group of area motorcycle riders organized a ride in connection with the vigil. Skyler Lundin, who spearheaded the gathering, said he wasn’t particularly worried about safety at the candlelight vigil, particularly since it was being held in the stadium venue. He said the ride was more about respect for Kirk’s death.
“The way I see it, how I was raised, my parents raised me a hippie and it's love,” Lundin told CPR News. “That's their message. You can have your opinions, you can have this, but (at) the end of the day, you still got to show love for everybody.”
Erin Grieger from Fort Collins participated in the motorcycle ride. While she said she didn’t follow Kirk closely, and didn’t necessarily agree with everything he said, she felt compelled to participate because she was shocked and horrified by his death and wants to promote free speech.
“And the hate that's followed afterwards, I feel like, is even a bigger motivation to kind of see this through. Like he always did it peacefully and I think that's important.”
Grieger said she liked Kirk’s compassion.“And how was encouraged to talk to people on the other side of the aisle who he knew didn't agree with him, and have that tough conversation that a lot of people just won't do anymore,” Greiger said. “And I think that's caused a lot of the political separation and a lot of the angst.”
The vigil began around 5:40 p.m. Officials said just more than 7,400 people had attended.
Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl, CSU alum and conservative political activist Isabel Brown, conservative speaker and author Will Witt, and Christian minister Andrew Wommack were scheduled to speak at Canvas Stadium.
Ganahl, who ran for governor of Colorado in 2022, reflected on her memory of Kirk.
“As a new regent at the University of Colorado, I found in Charlie a kindred spirit,” Ganahl said. “Together we charged into the fray at CU and CSU and other colleges across Colorado. And we reclaimed classrooms for open debate. We empowered young conservatives to find their voice and grew Turning Points chapters across Colorado’s campuses.”
Multiple corresponding events hosted by students and community members were slated to take place around the Turning Point USA vigil, including an open forum at the Lory Student Center Ballroom hosted by the CSU chapter of Political Review, a bipartisan student org on campus.
“I don't want the student body to be scared to have these hard conversations,” Victoria Doscotch, a senior and co-president of CSU’s Political Review, told CPR News. “Without them, we can't make change and progress and be a better community on campus. I really hope that it shows that we at CSU have a safe space to just have these hard conversations.”
The debate was scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m., immediately following the vigil. Both events are free and open to the public. The debate is part of the “Unf**** America Tour” with the tagline “For free speech. Against political violence.” The group labels itself as the “official counter organization to Turning Point USA.”
“I really do feel like we have carved out a really important bridging space on campus where people have a home,” said Patrick McCabe, a senior and co-president of Political Review. “They feel engaged after we've gone through such a period where we've been so disengaged from each other, so disconnected.
Kirk was originally slated to hold a debate on campus as part of an online series he called “Prove Me Wrong,” clips of which often went viral online. These debates involved Kirk sitting at a table on campus and inviting anyone to debate him on his conservative political views. He was also scheduled to hold an additional event in the evening. Both are still viewable on the Turning Point USA website, but the ticketing is no longer accessible.
The UFA had already planned on being present on campus prior to Kirk’s assassination. Zee Cohen-Sanchez, one of the UFA founders, tapped the CSU Political Review to help host the debate after Kirk was killed. “CSU Political Review does not endorse any individual speaker nor their viewpoints,” the student org stated on their Instagram account. “We condemn any acts or calls for political violence, even from those who may be platformed.”
The UFA also condemned the assassination of Kirk. “We were really excited to meet with Charlie Kirk for a scheduled debate a week from Sunday and are devastated by this outcome,” they said in a statement.
“Even though we disagreed with his political philosophy, we respected the hard work it took to build TPUSA,” the statement continues.
Security details
In a statement, CSU spokesperson Tiana Kennedy said that the university worked with state and national law enforcement agencies to prepare for today’s events.
Kennedy also stated that both events will have “typical game-day security requirements,” which involve a “clear-bag policy” and magnetometers at facility entrances.
“CSU is only providing secure facilities and is not organizing any of the activities within the venues. The university does not represent or speak on behalf of organizing entities,” the statement read.
The university also worked with student organizations and other groups who had planned to hold events on campus today to “select more secure spaces” or cancel their events for security.
The debate event details specify that no bags will be allowed at all, but the Lory Student Center has bag storage at the venue.
Since 2024, concealed or visible weapons are not allowed on college campuses.
Ahead of the event at the stadium, a long line of people stretched around it, with many waiting to get in after the event’s scheduled start time.
Students react to Kirk’s death, event
Before Kirk’s death, the Young Democrats at CSU posted a statement condemning his scheduled campus visit.
“In the strongest possible terms YDSA condemns the CSU administration’s decision to host Charlie Kirk on our campus,” the group said in a statement. “We humbly request Amy Parsons and the Board of Governors to rescind Charlie Kirk’s invite to our campus.”
Some CSU students expressed concern for their personal safety on campus. At the event, others talked about why they chose to attend the vigil.
Nico Marchillo, a recent CSU graduate, said he didn’t agree with all of Kirk’s views, but he was already planning to attend Kirk’s event at CSU before the killing last week.
“I know this kind of thing divides a lot of people. I honestly just pray on it. I just hope that people can find a way to use this to come together and, especially in the Republican Party, not choose to resort in violence and retaliate in ways,” Marchillo said before the vigil started. “I mean, God wants us to be righteous, but what’s the point of being righteous if you can’t do it in the face of evil?”
Angel Younghanz lives in Fort Collins and her sister graduated from CSU last year. She said she thinks freedom of speech has been under attack on all sides and that what happened to Kirk shouldn’t have happened to anybody on a college campus where people are supposed to share differences in ideas.
Younghanz said she agreed with Kirk’s message to try to show people how to live a better life and show that “the left has a very toxic way of living life.”
“I just really hope that Charlie's messages don't die with him, and that his wife and everybody who loved him and surrounded him can keep pushing those messages. Because at least here at CSU, there's a strong Democratic liberal legacy here, and it's good to have diversity,” Younghanz said. “They're all about diversity here. And the minority here in Colorado would be Christians.”
Kaylene Miknevicius lives in the Fort Collins area and attended the vigil to honor Kirk with her two daughters. They were each holding a big sign. She said free speech is the only way to avoid the violence that happened on the day Kirk was killed.
“I think it woke a lot of us up to what the other side will do, just for disagreeing,” she said referring to liberal people.
Brooke Voekler and Sahara Bradley, both freshmen in the animal sciences program, were also in attendance. Voekler said the human tragedy of Kirk’s death had stuck with her.
“A death is a death, and no matter what you think or what you believe, he was a human and he has a family. His 3-year-old and his 1-year-old now have to live their life without their father. And that's the worst feeling ever. I could never live without my dad,” Voekler said.
“It's a tragedy and I think that no matter what political party you are a part of, you need to mourn the loss of someone,” Bradley added.
More than 2,500 people watched an online stream of the vigil hosted by Turning Point USA. Comments flooded in, largely offering condolences and religious messages.
“All of this doesn’t feel real, does it,” said Will Witt to the crowd. Witt is a conservative media personality who grew up in Colorado and said he joined a Turning Point chapter as a student at CU-Boulder and set up clubs around the state, and later worked with Kirk.
“Charlie was the one man who I met in this world who I said, ‘This is a genuine guy.’ Everything he says, he believed in fervently. He never told a lie. He always told the truth. And even if you disagreed with him, you couldn't help but see the passion that he had and just see how infectious it was.”
He urged people to emulate Kirk.
“How do we best take our vengeance for these people who hate us, who want to see us dead? We do it through the way we live, we do it through faith, we do it through courage. We do it through hope, through strength. Every single day we wake up and say, how can I live a little bit more like Charlie,” he said.
Witt said the America of Wednesday last week, when Kirk died, is gone, and that there is no going back.
Isabel Brown, a CSU graduate who went on to work with Kirk, recounted the work Kirk had done to inspire conservative students.
“We didn’t just lose someone that we admired. We lost the intellectual and moral leader of an entire generation,” Brown said.
CPR reporters Tom Hesse and Bente Birkeland contributed to this report.
