Judy Shepard was living in Saudi Arabia with her husband in October 1998 when she received a phone call telling her to fly home to Wyoming immediately. Her son, Matthew, had been the victim of a hate crime because he was homosexual.

Matthew, a student at the University of Wyoming, died five days after being beaten with the butt of a pistol, chained to a fence outside Laramie, Wyo., and left to die. Two 21-year-old men were later convicted of his murder.

Thirty-six hours and three plane changes after the attack, Shepard and her husband, Dennis, arrived at Matthew"s hospital room to find him barely still alive.

"I could barely recognize him, but then I looked at his eyes, and I knew they were my son"s," Judy Shepard said during a speech at Eastern Michigan University last night.

"The twinkle of life wasn"t there anymore."

About 400 people attended Shepard"s lecture, in which she spoke about the tragic loss of her son and the importance of tolerance and diversity in the United States.

Ypsilanti Mayor Cheryl Farmer introduced Shepard and recounted several hate crimes based on sexual preference that have not received the attention she thinks they deserved.

"What is it that we have not yet learned, but need to be learning, from these tragic stories so they won"t be repeated again and again?" she asked.

Shepard has been speaking to groups for more than two years. Her speeches have a slightly different focus following the Sept. 11 attacks because she lived in Saudi Arabia and still has many friends living in the Middle East.

"It breaks my heart when I read about the hatred connected with the Arab community today," she said. "But we must remember it is an anomaly. It does not explain the culture, the country, the people or the religion."

Shepard urged gays and lesbians to be open with their friends, family and co-workers about their sexuality, because homosexuality "must become a non-issue." She also asked people to become politically involved because individual votes make an impact.

"I don"t talk about the election of 2000 anymore because it makes me just a little cranky, but it does show how important one vote can be," she said.

Lindsay Gotelaene, an Eastern freshman, said she attended the lecture because she recently wrote a report about victims of hate crimes.

"I chose to write about Matthew Shepard," she said. "Her speech was so powerful because it came from the perspective of a mother. It was so personal."