By Rachel Aretakis

His friends described him as knowing everyone. And as hundreds filed into the Newman Center on Thursday, it proved true.

Alex Ehr, a UK sophomore and Delta Sigma Phi member, died Wednesday evening after battling cancer since he was diagnosed in early November.

“He fought for his life until the very end,” said Andrew Greer, Ehr’s fraternity brother and roommate last year.

Greer was the first to speak at the candlelight vigil when the floor was opened.

“As a roommate, Alex was always there when I needed him,” he said.

Ehr was always all smiles and was a “goofy guy,” Greer said. “Some people make the world special just by being in it.”

Despite the pouring rain on Thursday, people lined up outside waiting to sign the guestbook, which the fraternity will send to Ehr’s family in Wisconsin. Delta Sig brothers had to gather more chairs multiple times to accommodate everyone.

“I think everyone needed some sort of closure,” said Micah Fielden, former Delta Sig president and UK’s current student body president. “It’s our duty to show his family how supportive everyone is.”

The vigil started and ended with the fraternity prayer, as more than 100 brothers spoke together in unison, honoring their brother.

“Everyone considers him a brother tonight,” Ryan Lehane, Delta Sig’s current president, said. “Alex was a warrior during the final days.”

Ehr went home in early November, but he didn’t know he had cancer at that point, said Mark Jacob, a Delta Sig member. He said at first it was thought to be pneumonia, and it wasn’t until Ehr went home that he was diagnosed.

“He kept saying he was going to come back,” Jacob said. Two weeks ago, Jacob said he spoke to Ehr on the phone, and they were still talking about living with each other next year.

Before Ehr died, Jacob said Ehr wrote down on a piece of paper, “I love God, I have to go.”

Ehr’s cancer was rare, Fielden said, with about 200 cases a year.

“It just happened so quick. We had no idea,” Fielden said.

Delta Sig brothers Miles Hart, Greer and Jacob said Ehr was involved in multiple intramurals and was always playing something. They said they would joke around and give him a hard time, but he took it so well.

“I could ask him anything and he would always do it,” Hart said.

The fraternity created a Facebook event page to get the word out about the candlelight vigil. More than 800 people had responded by RSVPing or offering condolences

on the page before the vigil began.

Isaac Hallam, a senior in the fraternity, helped plan the vigil and said, “we had to do something.”

He said Ehr was a person who was unappreciated. “You don’t know how good you got it until you lost it,” he said.

With the amount of people who came, Jacob said he wasn’t surprised.

“He met more people his freshman year than I have in the past 10 years,” Jacob said. “We will remember him by how many people knew him.”

And as everyone lit their candles, the church glowed with the hundreds of faces of those who knew Alex Ehr.

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