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SU students honor 1988 Lockerbie bombing victims: ‘It feels like they are right behind us’

Tom Magnarelli
Remembrance Scholars at Syracuse University.

This week, Syracuse University is asking students to remember the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, including 35 SU students studying abroad. SU’s Remembrance Scholarships honor each of the students killed in the attack.

Tulipe Hosenn is one of 35 Remembrance Scholars, awarded with a $5,000 scholarship, continuing the legacy of the students lost in the Lockerbie bombing. She represents Christopher Jones, who was a junior, an aspiring sports writer, and a bit of a prankster at SU before he was killed almost 29 years ago.

"I read letters that he sent to his father, for years after years and I saw his growth from a teenager to someone in college," Hosenn said. "All the way until December 1988, he wrote letters to his father. I just read the last letter he ever sent to him. It feels like they are right behind us as we are trying to remember them."    

Jones sent postcards home of soccer matches and different locations in Europe. Hosenn admitted she gets emotional when talking about him, even though the event that took his life happened before she was born.

"I could have been Christopher Jones," Hosenn said. "I am Christopher Jones. He had aspirations and that was taken from him."

Hosenn said the Pan Am bombing brought Syracuse University together like nothing else.

"Every year, we believe in looking back and never forgetting their names, never forgetting what happened to us," Hosenn said. "It really gave us an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to grow, to heal, which we haven’t yet. But we totally feel that every year that by remembering them, by looking back, we can act forward and try to remedy the societal challenges that are brought upon us once in awhile."   

The events this week include a candlelight vigil, a media terrorism panel, acts of kindness, open mic night and a rose laying ceremony.

Tom Magnarelli is a reporter covering the central New York and Syracuse area. He joined WRVO as a freelance reporter in 2012 while a student at Syracuse University and was hired full time in 2015. He has reported extensively on politics, education, arts and culture and other issues around central New York.