From NBC
Profiles of victims in Virginia Tech massacre
The slain include an award-winning professor and an Air Force cadet
|
|
|
They came to Blacksburg, Va., from all over the country — and all over the world. They came to study, and they came to teach. They had plans. They had friends. They had families.
As the list of confirmed victims in Monday's massacre on the Virginia Tech campus grew, so too did the number of stories about the individuals who fell victim to the gunman, 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho of Centreville, Va.
There were stories of heroism. Students of Liviu Librescu, an engineering science and mechanics lecturer, say he blocked the door of his classroom with his body to protect those inside. Librescu, 76, was a Holocaust survivor.
Ryan Clark, a popular and gregarious member of the Marching Virginians band, was just weeks away from graduation. A resident adviser on the fourth floor of the West Ambler Johnston dorm, Clark came to the aid of a student the morning of April 16. It cost him his life.
Students told of teachers who inspired them. Neighbors spoke of children they'd seen grow up and leave for college, lives filled with promise.
Kevin Granata was one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy. He coached his children in many sports and extracurricular activities.
Reema Samaha, a freshman who performed with the school's Contemporary Dance Ensemble, was shot dead in French class.
Juan Ramon Ortiz, from Puerto Rico, decorated his parents’ one-story concrete house each Christmas. A neighbor heard Ortiz’s mother scream when she learned of her son’s death.
Here are the faces, the names and the stories of some of those killed Monday. Many of the stories about the victims have come from MSNBC.com readers.
 |
|
Myspace.com
Ross Abdallah Alameddine
|
Ross Abdallah Alameddine, 20, of Saugus, Mass. He was a sophomore English major who was gunned down in French class.
Alameddine's mother, Lynnette Alameddine, said Tuesday that she was "trying to get through the day here."
"Horrifying, really horrifying. I’m just trying to keep it together," she said.
Alameddine was a graduate of Austin Preparatory School in Reading, Mass.
Friends created a memorial page on Facebook.com that described Alameddine as "an intelligent, funny, easy going guy."
"You're such an amazing kid, Ross," wrote Zach Allen, who also attended Austin Prep, according to his profile. "You always made me smile, and you always knew the right thing to do or say to cheer anyone up."
Lynnette Alameddine said she was outraged by how the events were handled. "It happened in the morning, and I did not hear (about Ross's death) until a quarter to 11 at night," she said. "That was outrageous. Two kids died, and then they shoot a whole bunch of them, including my son."
---
 |
|
AFP - Getty Images
Jamie Bishop
|
Christopher James Bishop, 35, was an instructor in German and German literature.
Bishop decided which German-language students at Virginia Tech could attend the Darmstadt Technology University to improve their German.
“He would teach them German in Blacksburg, and he would decide which students were able to study” abroad, Darmstadt spokesman Lars Rosumek said.
The German school set up a book of condolences for students, staff and faculty to sign, along with information about the Virginia shootings.
“Of course many persons knew him personally and are deeply, deeply shocked about his death,” Rosumek said.
An anonymous poster to MSNBC.com wrote that Bishop would meet students weekly at one of the two German restaurants in town "to practice speaking German and making friends."
"And every Wednesday possible, rain or shine, he was there," the poster wrote.
Bishop earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in German from the University of Georgia and was a Fulbright scholar at Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany.
According to his Web site, http://www.memory39.com/, Bishop spent four years living in Germany, where he “spent most of his time learning the language, teaching English, drinking large quantities of wheat beer, and wooing a certain fraulein.”
The “fraulein” was Bishop’s wife, Stephanie Hofer, who also teaches in Virginia Tech’s German program.
From 2000 to 2005, Bishop was an academic technology liaison at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to WRAL TV.
At Virginia Tech, he also taught classes via the Faculty Development Institute on different computer programs and the use of blogs and other online tools in higher education, WRAL said.
---
Brian Bluhm, 25, was a graduate student in water resources.
Born in Iowa and raised in Detroit,
 |
|
blogspot.com
Brian Bluhm
|
"He went to a game last weekend and saw them win, and I’m glad he did,” said Bluhm’s close friend Michael Marshall of Richmond, Va.
He received his undergraduate degree in civil engineering at Virginia Tech and was getting ready to defend his thesis. He already had accepted a job in Baltimore, Marshall said.
Bluhm moved to Louisville, Ky., before heading to Virginia. His parents moved to Winchester while he was in school, so Blacksburg became his real home, Marshall said.
Bluhm also loved Virginia Tech’s Hokies football team, and a close group of friends often traveled to away games.
But Marshall said it was his faith and work with the Baptist Collegiate Ministries that his friend loved most. “Brian was a Christian, and first and foremost that’s what he would want to be remembered as,” he said.
---
Ryan Clark, 22, from Martinez, Ga., a biology, English and psychology major. He was a resident adviser on the fourth floor of the dorm where the rampage began.
Just a month from graduation, he was a member of the Marching Virginians Band and intended to pursue a Ph.D. in psychology. Called "Stack" by his friends, Clark carried a 4.0 grade-point average, said Vernon Collins, coroner in Columbia County, Ga.
NBC News
"He was just one of the greatest people you could possibly know," Gregory Walton, a friend who graduated last year, said as he fought tears. "He was always smiling, always laughing. I don't think I ever saw him mad in the five years I knew him."
April 17: TODAY host Meredith Vieira talks to friends of this brave Virginia Tech student, who was killed when coming to the aid of a student.
Arielle Perlmutter posted on MSNBC.com that she had been friends with Ryan for a decade. "Ryan and I worked at Camp Big Heart, a camp for children and adults with special needs for part of every summer since I was in high school," she posted. "Ryan was one of the most amazing, loving and caring young men I have ever met. He went into every day of camp, trying as it could be, with a smile and a open mind. I rarely, in the years I knew Ryan, saw him frown.
"Ryan directed the music/dance program at camp and brought cheer to all the campers around him. He was constantly smiling and dancing, signing and cheering. The campers would gather around Ryan and hug him. We have a picture of a year that Ryan was at camp on his birthday. All of the campers were surrounding him, hugging him, and all you could see of him was his head sticking out above the crowd. They all loved 'Mr. Ryan'. Camp will never be the same and we will all bear the scar of this tragedy for many years to come. Ryan will never be forgotten, and always be missed."
Perlmutter, 27 and a teacher in Buford, Ga., later told MSNBC.com that Clark had always wanted to work with kids. “We’d joked about him coming to work at my school, so that we'd be closer."
"I don’t think there’s enough words to explain how you feel when someone passes,” she said. "But he was one step above a lot of people."
---
Austin Cloyd, 18, was a freshman majoring in international studies and French.
Cloyd, from Blacksburg, was so inspired by an Appalachian service project that helped rehabilitate homes that she and her mother started a similar program in their native Illinois town, her former pastor said.
The Cloyds were active members of the First United Methodist Church in Champaign, Ill., before moving to Blacksburg in 2005, the Rev. Terry Harter said. The family moved when Cloyd’s father, C. Bryan Cloyd, took a job in the accounting department at Virginia Tech, Harter said.
Harter, whose church held a prayer service for the family Tuesday night, described Cloyd as a “very delightful, intelligent, warm young lady” and an athlete who played basketball and volleyball in high school.
But it was the mission trips to Appalachia that showed just how caring and faithful she was, he said. “It made an important impact on her life, that’s the kind of person she was,” he said.
---
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, age unknown, a French language teacher who was instrumental in the creation of the first French school in a town in Nova Scotia, Canada.
She lived there in the 1990s with her husband, Jerzy Nowak, the head of the horticulture department at Virginia Tech.
Richard Landry, a spokesman with the francophone school board in Truro, Nova Scotia, said Couture-Nowak was one of three mothers who pushed for the founding of the Ecole acadienne de Truro in 1997.
“It was very important for her daughters to be taught in French,” said Rejean Sirois, who worked with her in establishing the school.
Elizabeth Taggart, of Reston, Va., posted to MSNBC.com that she had stayed in touch with her freshman French teacher despite switching to Spanish last semester.
"My Spanish class was in the classroom in Norris right after hers at 10:10," said Taggart. "She and I had reconnected this semester since I would always arrive early to keep up with my French."
Taggart remembers her former teacher as one of the most caring, loving teachers I have met on our campus, an incredible professor and woman."
Mariangela Linoci, who also wrote in to MSNBC.com, had this to say about her former teacher: "The very last day of class she met us at the Cranwell Center, she wore her cooking apron and prepared crepes for everybody!"
"I want to believe she's somewhere safe now, with all the other victims." she said.
---
Daniel Perez Cueva, 21, a student from Peru who was studying international relations. He was shot during French class, according to his mother, Betty Cueva.
"[Daniel] was very close to his mother," an anonymous poster from Woodbridge, Va., wrote to MSNBC.com. "Every time she came to my house, she would tell me stories of how well he was doing in VTech and how proud she was of her son."
He was also a member of Peru's swim team.
His father, Flavio Perez, spoke of the death earlier to RPP radio in Peru.
He lives in Peru and said he was trying to obtain a humanitarian visa from the U.S. Consulate. He is separated from Cueva, who said she had lived in the United States for six years.
A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Lima said the student’s father “will receive all the attention possible when he applies” for the visa.
---
Kevin Granata, 45, an engineering science and mechanics professor who was married and had three children. He had served in the military and later conducted orthopedic research in hospitals before going to Virginia Tech, where he and his students researched muscle and reflex response and robotics.
 |
|
Virginia Tech
Kevin Granata
|
Engineering professor Demetri Telionis said Granata was successful, but also kind. "With so many research projects and graduate students, he still found time to spend with his family and he coached his children in many sports and extracurricular activities," Telionis said. "He was a wonderful family man. We will all miss him dearly."
Granata was known worldwide for his research into how muscles accomplish complicated movements, said Stefan Duma, another engineering professor.
"He liked to ask the big questions," Duma said. "When we had students defending their Ph.D., and he kept asking 'Did we have the total solution?' He was really interested in whether we answered the big questions. That’s really a sign of a great scientist."