Final Tribute to the Victims

This will mark my 10th and final blog entry about an event which all of us associated with Virginia Tech and my home state of Virginia will remember for the rest of our lives. I was initially going to make a post about the arrival of Frnaklin Graham on the Virginia Tech. He is a man I am not too found of, since he called Islam, the religion of my late father Mehmet Gokbudak a religion of 'hate and evil.' Graham never apologized for those comments. Though I am a deist/Unitarian myself, I was very outspoken when Graham came to my hometown of Salem in 2003 for a crusade. I wrote a letter to the editor to "The Roanoke Times," and I recieved a racist anynomous letter in my mailbox as a result. However, I think the best thing for me to do is to pay homage to one of the Muslim students who was murdered on Monday. I saw one blogger in Egypt complain that not enough media coverage was being devouted to Waleed Mohamed Shaalam, 32. I would like to assure those of Arab heritage that many people in southwest Virginia do care about this man who left behind a wife and a young child in Zagazig, Egypt. The Muslim Students Association of Virginia Tech had these comments from Shaalam's roomate, Fahad Pasha: "He was the simplest and nicest guy I ever knew. We would be studying for our exams and he would buy a cake and make tea for us," Pasha said.
"The Roanoke Times" reported today that a funeral service was held yesterday for Austin Cloyd, 18, a professor's daughter originally from Champaign,Il. Reporter Albert Raboteau attended the service at Blacksburg Baptist Church. Stephanie Larson, a high school friend from Illinois, said the following about Cloyd: "She always had a smile," Larson said. "She was nice, and encouraging........I'm just grateful that I got to meet her."
Cloyd would have turned 19 on Tuesday.
Particularly hit hard by Monday's events is the Lebanese-American community. They lost two students according to www.arabisto.com, including Ross Alameddine of Mass., and Reema Samaha of Centerville, Va. (see earlier entry).
Memorial t-shirts have been made out for Samaha's memory (see link and email bellow), they are available for $17.
Donations are also being accepted for Henry Lee, 20, a graudate of William Fleming HS in Roanoke (see earlier entry). The address for a memorial fund in his name is:
The Henry Lee Scholarship Fund
3649 Ferncliff Ave.
Roanoke, Va. 24017

The names of all 32 victims as well as those who were wounded on Monday can be found at "The Roanoke Times" web site (see link bellow).

Links:

Roanoke Times
http://www.roanoke.com
Muslim Students Association of Virginia Tech (with info on donations for Shaalan):
http://www.msavt.org/main/default.asp
Other link:
http://www.muslimmatters.org
Link for t-shirts remembering Samaha:
http://www.dance-explosion.org/vt.htm
An article about Samatha is also available in today's (4/22) Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com