Gary Clark has vague memories of the Pan Am Flight 103 tragedy.

‘I remember leaving my grandmother’s house after the news reported the bombing, and her trying to explain it to me,’ said Clark, a policy studies major. ‘She just said that sometimes, bad people do bad things to good people.’

Clark, who entered Syracuse University at 26 years old, is representing Frederick ‘Sandy’ Phillips, who entered SU at 27 years old.

Phillips, from Little Rock, Ark., studied at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management before he went abroad. He was vice president for Administrative Operations in the Student Government Association and a member of ROTC.

‘He was a little bit older than some of his peers, so he became a mentor to them,’ Clark said. ‘He was an older student, but he was taking a role of authority at SU.’

Clark learned about the Remembrance Scholars program from a few of his professors and his faculty advisor. It interested him because the program was looking for students trying to build a world without terrorism, Clark said.

‘We all strive to keep our minds working toward a world where hopefully this doesn’t happen again,’ Clark said. ‘It forever changed the relationship between the United States and Libya. It’s still playing out today, so it’s important that we don’t forget.’

Published on October 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm