Remembrance Scholars representing 35 Syracuse University students who died in December of 1988 aboard Pan Am Flight 103 have been visiting classes this week discussing the tragedy. Lynsey Cooper described what happened in vivid detail.
“(Pan Am Flight 103) It was flying over Scotland... a bomb detonated and the plane blew up, crashed to the ground over the small town called Lockerbie, Scotland. All 259 people, crew, passengers on the plane were killed as well as the 11 People on the ground.”
SU student Katie Ellsweig saw the presentation in her class on Thursday and says she’s come to realize the significance of the tragedy, even beforehand.
“When I came here, during the tour, the tour guide stopped and pointed out the wall and since then, I felt like there is always almost a constant reminder of what happened there and it is really an active memory. So, I really felt that was a very strong decision on the part of the university to keep it ongoing.”
During Remembrance Week, the scholars wear buttons with pencil sketched portraits of the students they’re posthumously representing. Lynsey Cooper says it’s as though she’s been carrying around the memory of Thomas Britton Schultz with her on campus.
“It’s a very interesting, special feeling, you know, takes a while to manifest, but I’m never going to stop getting to know him. He’s always going to be in my thoughts and someone that I look up to.”
Cooper says Schultz was enrolled in the SU Study Abroad Program, but actually attended Ohio Wesleyan University.
“He was studying history and politics in government. He had these big dreams to become a lawyer and work on Capitol Hill. He had an internship set up for that summer after he got home, already. He was actually kind of considering changing and heading in a professor track also at the time of his death.”
In researching the students who died on Flight 103, some scholars noticed very striking similarities including Remembrance Scholar Emily Day.
“When I read the description of Nicholas (Andreas Vrenios), I was speechless. Because I feel like I was talking to my twin or like my best friend or something.”
She read a personal journal to get acquainted with a Vrenios.
“He wrote about what youth meant and that it was more of a mindset rather than if you’re young, then you have youth. You can be youthful at any age. He talked about his first love experience. He talked about the worst day of his life. He talked about the best day of his life.”
Final remembrance week activities concluded today with a rose laying ceremony at the Wall of Remembrance on campus, a Remembrance Convocation at Hendrick’s Chapel and a balloon launch.
