Chinese School - A look at some Virginia Tech victims

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A look at some Virginia Tech victims

(AP)
Updated: 2007-04-18 09:32

A look at some of the victims killed in the Virginia Tech massacre:

Ross Abdallah Alameddine

Alameddine, 20, of Saugus, Mass., was a sophomore who had just declared
English as his major.

Friends created a memorial page on Facebook.com that described Alameddine
as "an intelligent, funny, easygoing guy."

"You're such an amazing kid, Ross," wrote Zach Allen, who along with
Alameddine attended Austin Preparatory School in Reading, Mass. "You
always made me smile, and you always knew the right thing to do or say to
cheer anyone up."

Alameddine was killed in the classroom building, according to Robert
Palumbo, a family friend who answered the phone at the Alameddine
residence Tuesday.

Alameddine's mother, Lynnette Alameddine said she was outraged by how
victims' relatives were notified of the shooting.

"It happened in the morning and I did not hear (about her son'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."

Christopher James Bishop

Bishop, 35, taught German at Virginia Tech and helped oversee an exchange
program with a German university.

Bishop decided which German-language students at Virgina 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 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.

Bishop earned bachelor's and master's degrees in German and was a
Fulbright scholar at Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany.

According to his Web site, 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.

Ryan Clark

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.

Clark, 22, was from Martinez, Ga., just outside Augusta. He was a
fifth-year student working toward degrees in biology and English, and a
member of the Marching Virginians band.

"He was just one of the greatest people you could possibly know," friend
Gregory Walton, 25, said after learning from an ambulance driver that
Clark was among the dead.

"He was always smiling, always laughing. I don't think I ever saw him mad
in the five years I knew him."

Jocelyne Couture-Nowak

Couture-Nowak, a French instructor at Virginia Tech, was instrumental in
the creation of the first French school in a town in Nova Scotia.

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.

A student who identified herself as DeAnne Leigh Pelchat described her
gratitude to Couture-Nowak on a Web site.

"I will forever remember you and what you have done for me and the others
that benefit from what you did in the little town of Truro," Pelchat
wrote in French. "You'll always have a place in my heart."

Daniel Perez Cueva

Perez Cueva, 21, from Peru, was killed while in a French class, said his
mother, Betty Cueva, who was reached by telephone at the youth's listed
telephone number.

Perez Cueva was a student of international relations, according to the
Virginia Tech Web site.

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 here. 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

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.

The head of the school's engineering science and mechanics department
called Granata one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the
country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.

"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," said engineering professor Demetri P.
Telionis. "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."

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