Remembrance Week: Syracuse community honors students lost in terrorist attack
Remembrance Week: Syracuse community honors students lost in terrorist attack
Campus concludes 36th anniversary of attack with rose laying ceremony to remember those who were lost.

Grief and joy — polar opposite emotions that are perhaps the best descriptions of the atmosphere around the annual rose-laying ceremony this past Friday afternoon.
The ceremony commemorates the 270 people who died in the terrorist attack over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, including 11 Lockerbie residents and 35 SU students. Remembrance Scholars, families of the Pan Am 103 victims, and many from the SU community gathered in front of Hall of Languages on the beautiful fall afternoon to honor those who were killed and celebrate their lives.

The ceremony was a part of Remembrance Week on SU’s campus, where public events coordinated by the Scholars and the Remembrance program aim to bring knowledge of the attack’s impact on communities close to home and aboard to current University students in an effort to preserve the memory of those lost.
35 Remembrance Scholars and two Lockerbie Scholars stepped out of Hall of Languages at 2:03 pm, the time of the bombing, and walked down towards the Wall of Remembrance holding white roses.
Standing on either side of the Wall, Scholars all gave short speeches about the students they represented, talking about their personalities and passions, and how they planned to act forward in their memories. Each Scholar ended their descriptions by laying a rose down on the Wall of Remembrance.

Buddhist Chaplain JoAnn Cooke closed the ceremony. She called for those in attendance to let go of sadness and hatred, so that love and remembrance may grow without any hindrance.
There were tears in many people’s eyes, and the somber mood was tempered by happiness at remembering the victims at their best.

The rose-laying ceremony was followed by the Remembrance Scholar Convocation at Hendricks Chapel, rounding off the 2024 Remembrance Week and the 36th anniversary of the attack.