Check out my post from yesterday for all the latest news on this shooting with updates constantly. This post is for the victims:
Ross Alameddine is a sophomore who had just declared English as his major. A graduate of Austin Preparatory School in Reading, he was in French class yesterday morning in Room 211 of Norris Hall, where many were slain on the campus.
Alameddine was a 2005 graduate of Austin Preparatory School in Reading, where this morning headmaster Paul J. Moran remembered him as “a bright and engaged student and a truly fine young man.” In a prepared statement, Moran also said “Our prayers and deepest sympathy go out, especially to the Alameddine family"…"but also to all of the families of the victims of this senseless act.”
Messages from friends and family members on were pouring in all day on Alameddine’s Facebook Web page begging him to get in touch with anyone. Later, postings were full of grief.
“Have no idea how I am going to deal with this. You have affected me so much,” wrote one.
“R.I.P. Ross, we love you man and your memory will live on forever with us all,” wrote another.
Kevin Granata, a professor of engineering science and mechanics, served in the military and later conducted orthopedic research in hospitals before coming to Virginia Tech, where he and his students researched muscle and reflex response and robotics.
Puri called Granata one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.
Engineering professor Demetri P. 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.”
Ryan Clark was called “Stack” by his friends, many of whom he met as a resident assistant at Ambler Johnson Hall, where the first shootings took place, and as a member of the Marching Virginians band.
Clark, 22 of Martinez, Ga., just outside of Augusta, was a fifth-year student working toward degrees in biology and English.
Gregory Walton, 25, learned his friend was among the dead from an ambulance driver.
“He was just one of the greatest people you could possibly know,” Walton said, fighting tears. “He was always smiling, always laughing. I don’t think I ever saw him mad in the five years I knew him.”
G.V. Loganathan was born in the southern Indian city of Chennai and had been a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech since 1982.
Loganathan, 51, won several awards for excellence in teaching, had served on the faculty senate and was an adviser to about 75 undergraduate students.
“We all feel like we have had an electric shock, we do not know what to do,” his brother G.V. Palanivel told the NDTV news channel from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. “He has been a driving force for all of us, the guiding force.”
One of the first was aimed at the head of the teacher, Christopher James Bishop, who wore his hair long, rode his bike to campus and worked with his wife in the foreign languages department at Virginia Tech.
Authorities had not publicly identified any victims as of late Monday, but colleagues confirmed that Bishop, 35, was among the dead.
Bishop’s friends said they were struggling to comprehend the violent death of an instructor who was known for his gentle manner and generosity toward students.
"I don’t think he was the type of person who had an enemy," said Troy Paddock, a close friend whose wife also teaches in the German program. "He was a very friendly person. He did weekly gatherings for students out of class to practice German where they could talk about anything. He was a nice and helpful person."
On the websites where he posted samples of the art he created with his digital camera, Bishop, who was known as Jamie, described himself as "mild-mannered" and "bespectacled." He was an avid hiker and movie fan, a Georgia native who paid close attention to the wins and losses of the Atlanta Braves baseball team.
Bishop wrote online that after earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in German at the University of Georgia, he spent four years in Germany, "where he spent most of his time learning the language, teaching English, drinking large quantities of wheat beer, and wooing a certain fräulein."
Caitlin Hammaren was a graduate of the Minisink Valley Class of 2005. She entered Virginia Tech as a world politics major. Her dream was snuffed out Monday when a fellow student went on a rampage killing 32 students including the Orange County native.
Minisink Valley Schools Superintendent Dr. Martha Murray remembers Caitlin best for her artistic abilities as a member of the chorus and drama club. She was president of the chorus and a member of the National Honor Society.
Murray said one’s college years are the most hopeful time in their life.
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Matt La Porte, a freshman at the Blacksburg, Virginia school, was listed among the confirmed dead this morning on collegiatetimes.com, the school paper’s Web site.
According to La Porte’s MySpace page, he was a music and military buff. He attended the Carson Long Military Institute in Pennsylvania from 1999 to 2005, and worked at the Cresskill Municipal Pool in recent summers.
At Carson Long Military Institute, the boarding school that La Porte attended from 1999 to 2005, a flag at the middle of campus flew at half-mast in memory of La Porte.
"It’s a rather somber mood right now, because we didn’t get the news until this morning. We’ll likely have a memorial service in the chapel on Friday," said Colonel Carson Holman, spokesman for the New Bloomfield, Pa., school.
Holman described La Porte as a hard-working and active student who graduated third in his class. He was a member of the drum and bugle corps, color guard, glee club and baseball and soccer teams, Holman said.
"He was really, truly a good and pleasant boy. It’s an absolute tragic thing for all of us," Holman said.
He said that early Tuesday morning La Porte’s mother called the school to "confirm the situation."
"A lot of our faculty members knew him and worked with him, and we all feel very sad. There are a number of students here that seem to be hit pretty hard," Holman said.
Friends and neighbors of a freshman from Rappahan nock County say she was one of the victims of yesterday’s slayings at Virginia Tech.
Police did not immediately identify any of the victims, but several people close to Emily Hilscher, 18, of Woodville said she was killed in the Norris Hall shootings.
Friends posting messages of tribute on the Internet site "Facebook" last night re membered her as a vibrant girl with an engaging person ality.
"Emily was a kind and wonderful person who al ways put a smile on my face," wrote Jessica Gould.
Culpeper County resident Mary Alphin, a Virginia Tech graduate, started a prayer chain yesterday afternoon to both remember Emily and as a means to begin the healing at her alma mater.
Hilscher was a 2006 grad uate of Rappahannock Coun ty High. She was the daugh ter of Eric and Elizabeth Hilscher.
According to several friends and neighbors of the family, her boyfriend, with whom she had attended high school and who is also a Virginia Tech student, had dropped her off for class before the rampage.
Brian Bluhm, a popular member of the Detroit Tigers internet community, was one of the students killed in the horrible shooting at Virginia Tech yesterday. I never met Brian in person but he was an important part of my life over the past several years. The same sentiment is being expressed by hundreds of friends on the blogs and messageboards which make up our community. Our thoughts are with his family today.
Brian, who was 25 years old, was weeks away from completing a Masters degree in Civil Engineering and starting a promising career in water resources. I had known him throughtout most of his undergraduate and graduate years at Virginia Tech.
Here is his school bio. Can’t find a picture of Brian so if you come across one please let me know. (The above picture was provided by a member of Detroit Tiger Tales blog in which Brian was a part of, my gratitude to Lee Panas)
A Rochester family is mourning the loss of a loved on in the Virginia Tech shooting. Her family says Mary Read, 19, was one of the 32 people shot and killed on campus Monday.Read’s aunt and uncle live in Rochester. Her grandparents live in Macedon. Another aunt lives in Palmyra.
Mary’s father grew up in Palmyra, the family settled in Virginia after he got out of the Air Force. Mary visited her family in Rochester during the summer. Her uncle is a lieutenant in the Rochester Fire Department.
As a Rochester firefighter, Ted Kuppinger has seen some tragedy. Nothing like he’s experiencing now as an uncle."It’s really incomprehensible," said Kuppinger.
His niece was in French class when a student opened fire inside her classroom on the Virginia Tech campus Monday.
"She was a very beautiful girl, quiet and understanding, very caring," Kuppinger added.
Liviu Librescu, a Romanian-born Israeli professor, survived the killing fields of Transnistria as a teenager but fell to the bullet of a lone gunman in an American university campus Tuesday.
The 76 year-old Holocaust survivor was shot and killed in the Virginia Tech massacre while holding off the gunman at his lecture hall entrance so his students could escape.
Librescu was among the thirty-three people who were murdered in the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007. He was killed during a class in the Norris Hall Engineering Building by a student, Korean-born Cho Seung-hui, 23.
At Virginia Tech, his recent position was Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics.
Librescu held the door of his classroom shut while Cho was attempting to enter it; although he was shot through the door, he was able to prevent the gunman from entering the classroom until his students had escaped through the windows.
Ortiz, 26, who was from Puerto Rico, was teaching a class as part of his graduate program in civil engineering at Virginia Tech.
The family’s neighbors in the San Juan suburb of Bayamon remembered Ortiz as a quiet, dedicated son who decorated his parents’ one-story concrete house each Christmas and played in a salsa band with his father on weekends.
"He was an extraordinary son, what any father would have wanted," said Ortiz’s father, also named Juan Ramon Ortiz.
Reema Samaha, a Lebanese-American student, was among 32 people killed Monday during the worst mass shooting in American history. Samaha, 19, a freshman at Virginia Tech University from Centreville, Virginia, was attending French class when the shooter, identified as 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui, began a second fatal shooting spree through the building, two hours after killing two in a dormitory across campus.
"She was pretty much my second half," Samaha’s sister, Randa, told NBC news on Tuesday. "We did everything together. We had all the same friends. I looked up to her and she looked up to me."
Randa, a junior at the University of Virginia (UVA), said that her sister was as at home at UVA as she was at Virginia Tech.
"She had a home at UVA. Everyone there loved her and everyone here loved her too. She could go anywhere and feel at home … She fell in love with the community."
An avid dancer, Reema had performed the debke with Lebanese and Palestinian students at Virginia Tech’s International Fair a day before her deah. On Saturday night, she had performed with the Contemporary Dance Ensemble.
Her brother, Omar, who graduated from Virginia Tech last year, had the chance to watch her final performances.
Sadness, shock and stunned silence. That’s how people felt when they learned that a former colleague was murdered in Monday’s shooting rampage at Virginia Tech.Jocelyne Couture-Nowak’s life was cut short by the massacre at the U.S. college. Jocelyne was formerly a resident of East Mountain.
“We are absolutely stunned. It’s a tragedy to everybody who knew her … to realize we will never see her again is devastating,” said Debbie Connolly, student services co-ordinator at the Institute for Human Services Education.
Jocelyne taught French, programming and language development for a number of years at the institute. She had also taught French part time at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Bible Hill.
“We are saddened. It’s a great loss to the education community as a whole. She was born to be an instructor,” said Connolly.
Anna MacDonell, program director at the institute, received the news at work yesterday morning.
“We certainly did not expect this to hit so close to home.
The mother of 21-year-old Daniel Pérez Cueva, a Peruvian student killed in yesterday’s shooting massacre at Virginia Tech, was an outstanding sportsman who excelled in swimming, his mother Betty Cueva said. He was a member of Peru’s National Swimming Federation.
“This is very difficult for me, something I cannot apprehend”, a weeping Mrs. Cueva said. “I want to think that he is alive. Together my son an I went through good and bad times in this country; my children are everything to me”, she said.
She detailed that her son went to high school at the Colegio Marista Champagnat in Surco, a district of Peru’s capital. He was very amicable, he liked to sing and to dance, but he still found the time to study and work hard, she described.
Before transferring to Virginia Tech a year ago he studied at the University of Miami. “His goal was to finish his education at Virginia Tech because the university is very prestigious within the United States. My son drew up an objective and he did everything possible to reach it”, she said in an interview with Peruvian radio station RPP Noticias.
She added that two months ago Daniel had received an invitation for a job interview from an organization in Washington D.C who were obviously impressed about his very good qualifications.
Alexis Bozzo and her boyfriend, Jeremy Herbstritt, talked for a good hour on the telephone before both went to bed Sunday night.
They said they loved each other and then he texted her again. “Good night VT Turkey, love your favorite Nittany Lion,” he wrote.
That was the last Bozzo, 22, from Maplewood, N.J., heard from her boyfriend of six months.
Herbstritt, 27, was in his second semester pursuing a master’s degree in civil engineering at Virginia Tech. He was deeply loyal to Penn State, where he completed his undergraduate degree.
Monday morning, a gunman shot and killed him while he worked as a teaching assistant in Norris Hall.
Bozzo, a fifth-year senior, was in Richmond when she heard about the chaos. At noon, she learned the shooting had occurred at Norris Hall.
“When they showed a picture of Norris Hall, my heart just dropped because he had classes in there,” she said.
Herbstritt was teaching a 9 a.m. class in Norris 206. When Bozzo learned that, she exclaimed, “Oh my God, that’s where Jeremy is at.”
Bozzo called her boyfriend’s parents, Michael and Peggy Herbstritt. He came from a close-knit family and was the oldest of four children, she said. His father works as an electrical engineer at Penn State and his mother is a nurse.
Herbstritt’s passion was running. He shared it with his family, and they often ran together. On Monday, his sister Jen was running the Boston Marathon and the family was in Boston to support her.
Rachael Hill was a freshman studying biology at Virginia Tech after graduating from Grove Avenue Christian School in Henrico County.
Hill, an only child, was popular and funny, had a penchant for shoes, and was competitive on the volleyball court.
"Rachael was a very bright, articulate, intelligent, beautiful, confident, poised young woman. She had a tremendous future in front of her," said Clay Fogler, administrator for the Grove Avenue school. "Obviously, the Lord had other plans for her."
Her father, Guy Hill, said the family was too distraught to talk about Hill on Tuesday, but relatives were planning to have memorial events later in the week. "We just need some time here," he said tearfully.
Looking for a picture of Rachael, please forward one if you find one.
Jarrett Lane was valedictorian of his 2003 Narrows High School class, a high-sports standout and a church leader.
"He’s just one of those people, it’s very rare that you can be good at so many things and be such a nice person, too," said Narrows High School athletic director Don Lowe, who was Lane’s coach and friend.
Lane was raised by his mother and grandmother, according to Lowe.
At Virginia Tech, where he was a senior engineering major, he was already taking graduate-level courses — and was in professor G.V. Loganathan’s graduate hydrology class when he was killed.
Lane was recently accepted to graduate school at the University of Florida with a full ride and a graduate assistantship. Teachers and friends alike described him as mannerly — "the kind of person who’s not going to be … loud or boisterous, but when work needs to be done, he’s going to do it," Lowe said.
An engineering intern for Virginia Tech’s Site & Infrastructure Development, he was trusted to do professional-level work.
"He was the kind of guy that once you met him he was like part of your family — the whole town knew him," said David Dent, his internship supervisor as well as a former church youth group leader of Lane’s and a family friend. "He was always the guy that the other ones looked up to."
Daniel Patrick O’Neil, a 2002 graduate of Lincoln High School, was among the 32 students slain yesterday at Virginia Tech, where O’Neil was pursuing a graduate degree in environmental engineering.
Paul Gallogly, a friend of O’Neil’s parents, issued a brief statement this afternoon:
"At this very difficult time, we are asking members of the media to respect our privacy, to be alone with our family and friends.’’
O’Neil’s student listing on the Virginia Tech Web site gave his home address as 26 Fairmount Ave. He graduated from Lafayette College last year with a degree in civil engineering.
According to one school publication, O’Neil was the vice president of the Arts Society while at Lafayette, was an active participant in intramural sports and a member of the Marquis Players, a student group that produced an annual charity musical.
According to O’Neil’s high school yearbook, he was a member of the cross country and outdoor track teams, drama club and on the National Honor Society.
His senior photo includes the following quote:
"Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. / Life ain’t a track meet, it’s a marathon."
He also wrote in his yearbook: “Never Stop Watching Disney.”
Also on Tuesday, Eastman Chemical employees learned a former intern was a victim of Monday’s Virginia Tech rampage.
Maxine Turner, a Vienna, Va., native, interned at the company’s polymer area in 2005, Eastman spokeswoman Betty Payne said.
Employees remembered Turner as an energetic, bubbly person.
“She never met a stranger,” said Susan Harris, who oversees the internship program. “Maxine is someone I’ve know for almost three years. She would come to all our student dinners. I would do student dinners twice a year and she was always there,” Harris said. Payne said Turner was a senior chemical engineering student who would have graduated next month.
Henry Lee, 20, a freshman from Roanoke, Va., had achieved much despite significant odds. He was born in China as Henh P. Ly and his parents came to the United States when he was in elementary school, said Susan Lewyer Willis, the principal at William Fleming High School, who said he changed his name to Henry Lee when he became a citizen last year.
In high school, in addition to working at a Sears store, he was such a diligent student that he won nearly all the awards in his senior year, including the Burger King award, which entitled every classmate to a card with Mr. Lee’s picture on it that could be exchanged for a free Whopper.
As salutatorian, he was asked to give a speech but was so nervous that he had to be coaxed into it, Ms. Willis said.
“He said to them,” she recounted, “ ‘Imagine sitting in class not knowing the language. Now I am No. 2 in my class.’ It was such a proud moment.”
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Leslie Sherman, 20, was taking a French class Monday morning in room 207 of Norris Hall, according to her friend Deepika Chadive, a Virginia Tech student who played on the West Springfield High School basketball team with Sherman. Sherman, a 2005 West Springfiled graduate, was a terrific point guard and aspiring historian, said her friend.
"She was always in her books," said Chadive. "She was so respectful when it came to my parents. My parents loved her."
Sherman had a part time job at the West End Market on campus, where co-worker Andrew Clinger remembers her as "one of the nicest people I ever met".
Please pass along a picture of Leslie if you find one.
From playing power forward on the basketball court to perfecting her French accent in an honors class, Erin Peterson was a vivacious young woman who “enriched everyone’s lives,” said Patrick Deegan, a history teacher and basketball coach at Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va.
“Erin had an insatiable desire to drink in life,” Deegan said. “She was one of those people that if there was an activity, she wanted to do it and do well.”
Centreville neighbors and friends received word by midmorning Tuesday that Peterson had died. They believe she was an only child.
She was a starter on the high school’s varsity basketball squad. She also played on an elite American Athletic Union travel team in the spring and summer. She ran track before high school.
But Peterson was also on the football team as an offensive tackle or linebacker for the “powder puff team,” where girls play football against each other.
Centreville neighbor Mary Koch said Peterson took many Advanced Placement classes. She worked four years on the school’s newspaper.
Koch said Peterson, who was a close friend of her daughter, was admitted into many schools and chose to attend Tech after she graduated in 2006 from Westfield High School.
“She had a very promising future,” Koch said. “It was a horrible tragedy and a waste of this young person’s life.”
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"I’ve known her since preschool," said Hellman, who also attends Virginia Tech.
Nicole White had moved off campus in Blacksburg and was dating a young man she grew up with in Smithfield. In her hometown, she was known for her love of animals and the water.
She worked at a barn during high school, cleaning stables and caring for horses, Hellman said. She volunteered at another stable in Blacksburg.
She initially intended to follow a veterinary track at Virginia Tech, Hellman said, but her school profile on the Virginia Tech Web site lists her as a double major in international studies and German. She was in her junior year.
During the summers, White worked as a lifeguard at the YMCA and at the Gatling Pointe Yacht Club. She grew up with her family in the upscale Gatling Pointe neighborhood.
Several Isle of Wight residents and friends from college said they heard the news Tuesday and were saddened. "We’re numb," said a neighbor, who didn’t want to say more.
Please forward a picture if you have on of Nicole.
Former Centennial High School students were in shock Tuesday. They learned that one of their friends was killed in the Virginia Tech shooting on Monday. Austin Cloyd left Centennial two years ago when her family moved. Her father was a University of Illinois accounting professor, who got a job at Virginia Tech. She was a freshman there this year.
Today, her friends at U of I found out she was shot, while in French class. Nearly a dozen Centennial graduates, who now attend the U of I, gathered in a dormitory, to share memories of Cloyd. When they first heard about the shooting, they sent her emails and called her, just to check and make sure she was alright. Their eyes, were glued to the television, waiting for updates. But when they heard nothing, they became worried. Beth Elliott, Cloyd’s friend, says Austin’s mother was just telling her to keep praying. It wasn’t until Tuesday afternoon, they say the finally got the bad news…Austin died.
Rachel Day, friend, remembers hearing the news. "I just ran out of class, called everyone. Basically it was call to everyone to let them know what we knew. We were calling people for probably an hour or more, letting people know the very basic. That she was gone," says Day.
Tuesday night, the community held a prayer service for Austin and the other victims at First Methodist Church, in Champaign. Cloyd’s family was very involved with the church while they lived in Champaign. Terry Harter, Senior Pastor, says when he heard they couldn’t find her, he knew it didn’t sound good. "You think, alright, she’s unconscious, she’s in surgery; she doesn’t have an ID. But it just went on all night," says Harter. When he found out about her death, he said, "it’s just a horrible thing and there is no answer to why. We’ll never be happy with any answer. We’d like Austin back."
Cloyd’s friends say she loved to play basketball and volleyball. They also remember taking trips to the park with her; and having "Austin Wednesday", when all her friends would gather at her house for lunch every week. They shared these memories and many more on Tuesday, to try and cope with the pain of loss. The group of close friends say they won’t have Austin anymore, but they will have each other to share her memory.
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Partahi Lumbantoruan, 34, of Indonesia, civil engineering doctoral student, according to Kristiarto Legowo, a spokesman for the foreign ministry.
As you can tell, scant information can be found on Partahi.
Lauren McCain, a freshman majoring in international studies, according to her MySpace profile, was among those unaccounted for in the immediate wake of the shootings. Her friends’ efforts to figure out what happened to her are heart-wrenching, and outsiders can go along for the rollercoaster ride, eavesdropping through Facebook and other forums.
Her Myspace page had the following:
The purpose and love of my life is Jesus Christ. I don’t have to argue religion, philosophy, or historical evidence because I KNOW Him. He is just as real, if not more so, as my ‘earthly’ father.
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