On Dec. 21, 1988-four days before Christmas-35 Syracuse University students were killed when a bomb detonated aboard Pan Am Flight 103.
The plane, which was taking the students home after a semester abroad in London, exploded into pieces over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people aboard and an additional 11 on the ground.
Seventeen years later, SU still remembers the 35 students who died in the prime of their lives and cherishes the relationship borne out of tragedy that it has fostered with the town of Lockerbie.
SU has named 35 students as the recipients of the 2005-2006 Remembrance Scholarship. The annual $5,000 scholarship was established to keep alive the memory of the 35 students who died, said David Rubin, dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and chair of the scholarship selection committee.
Many SU faculty and staff said they believe the university has an obligation to honor the students who died.
"In the context of the school, it was a really, really dark day," said Melissa Chessher, an assistant professor of magazine journalism who is working on a book about Lockerbie.
"These were students that were the best and the brightest. They had fearlessly gone to study abroad and understand the world, and their lives were taken. ... I think there's a sense of duty in remembering and honoring the tremendous sacrifice that they made."
The Remembrance Scholars will help honor the students who died with a host of activities during Remembrance Week, usually held each fall semester. The scholars typically distribute buttons with pictures of the students on them, paste their pictures up on walls in the school buildings and tie yellow ribbons around trees on campus, Rubin said.
Remembrance Week has been scheduled between Oct. 30 and Nov. 4 this year, leading up to a convocation of this year's scholars at Hendricks Chapel on Nov. 4, said Judy O'Rourke, administrative assistant to the vice president of undergraduate studies and a member of the selection committee.
O'Rourke's role on the selection committee carries special meaning for her because she acted as liaison between the university and the victims' parents in the aftermath of the tragedy. She had to pass on the news that her office had received of the students' deaths to their parents.
"It was very hard-totally uncharted waters for any of us," O'Rourke said, visibly choking back her emotions. "No one prepares for anyone to die, especially their children."
O'Rourke has gained a lot, however, from the relationships she has formed with the parents she had to console in the days after the tragedy.
"It was really difficult early on, but I have come to know so many of those people well," O'Rourke said. "I've gotten a lot from my friendship with them over the years ... they're just very amazing people."
O'Rourke also admires the families of the students who died for forming a group, Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, which has fought for more stringent airport security since 1989.
"If you walked out onto the streets in most of the cities in the United States, most people would not be able to tell you about the Pan Am bombing," O'Rourke said. "But everyone who has flown in an airplane has had their lives affected by these people."
O'Rourke also works closely with SU's Lockerbie Scholars, two students from Lockerbie Academy who spend a year at SU every year, a sign of the relationship SU shares with the town.
Rubin expects this year's Remembrance Scholars will continue to educate the campus about the bombing and about the students who died.
The scholars were chosen after an application process that required them to explain the community service they had performed on campus and beyond and to write three essays about various topics. Applicants also underwent interviews with members of the selection committee, which comprised faculty and staff, as well as current Remembrance Scholars.
"In the end game, we had some difficulty getting it down to the final 35," Rubin said. "This is already a group that has given a lot and we know that they will continue to do that."
Christiane LaBonte, a senior policy studies and economics major, is one of the scholars selected this year.
"I was thrilled to be selected," LaBonte said. "It was a goal for me from the outset of my time in SU. ... One of my goals in life is to be of service to people."
LaBonte believes the scholarship is especially relevant in light of the security climate people live in today. One of the essay questions required applicants to recount the Pan Am bombing and explain its implications for the times we live in.
"There are terrorist-related incidents going on every day around the world," LaBonte said. "The more we know, the better solutions we can craft to ameliorate terrorism and the better our chances of getting people to act and to create real, meaningful solutions."
Rubin agreed the scholarship holds a greater relevance today than it has ever had.
"This award became, in my view, even more essential after 2001," Rubin said.
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