Shortly after this blog was originally posted, praying against the odds for a happier ending, the body of 19-year-old Alex Grant was found.

My heartfelt sympathies to his family.

What else is there to say? I have been following the search for the missing college kid as a newspaper editor -- and as a parent of two young men who are not much older than this fellow. I can only begin to imagine what his family is going through.

The Associated Press tells journalists that a male is referred to as a “man” at 19. True enough. But a 19-year-old has barely graduated from teenager-hood, is barely out of high school. A 19-year-old is a young man, but he’s someone’s kid. And, if my 81-year-old father is as typical as I think he is in this regard, you never stop worrying about your kids.

The condition that Alex Grant was in when last seen on videotape in the wee hours of Sunday morning does not encourage confidence about his safety. Three days later, I was hanging on to the hope that he would somehow be OK. It was not to be.

There are many unanswered questions pertaining related to this tragedy. We will be trying to answer them on our news pages. For now, I offer my sympathies to the Grant family.