LOCKERBIE, SCOTLAND — A small memorial cairn, made up of a pile of stones, sits in front of Lockerbie Academy, this town’s only high school. It’s a miniature version of the cairn in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, comprised of 270 blocks of Scottish sandstone to commemorate the lives lost in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.

Above the cairn is a sundial that contains the names of the three victims who attended Lockerbie Academy at the time of the disaster. Stemming from the sundial is an arrow pointing west with the words, “Syracuse, 3,238 miles.”

Despite being separated by an entire ocean, Lockerbie Academy and Syracuse University are linked by a tragedy that affected each institution differently. The connection between the two — a Scottish high school with about 700 students and an American university with more than 20,000 students — lives on 27 years after the bombing through the Lockerbie Scholarship, which celebrates its 25th year this fall.

“It’s not just a unique opportunity in the school. It’s a unique opportunity in Scotland,” said Brian Asher, the rector of Lockerbie Academy. “I think it’s probably unique in the U.K. I don’t know of another link where at the end of their sixth year, students get the chance to go to America and study.”

Evidence of the link between Lockerbie Academy and SU is present all around the high school. The library contains archives related to SU and former scholars. Pictures of the SU campus, current Lockerbie Scholars and even the 35 Remembrance Scholars adorn a bulletin board dedicated to information about the scholarship.

The Remembrance Scholars and Lockerbie Scholars represent SU students who died on Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988. SU recognizes the bombing every year with Remembrance Week, which began Sunday night. This year, Lockerbie Academy is recognizing Remembrance Week as well during the same time frame.

The current Lockerbie Scholars, Joanna Barrie and Ellen Boomer, each have their own section in the school bulletin in which they talk about their SU experiences and share photos.

Inside the academy’s assembly hall is a section dedicated to SU and the memory of Pan Am Flight 103. Among the memorabilia is a folded American flag imported from the United States. A large board in the center of the wall lists the names and years of every Lockerbie student who has made the journey to SU.

Asher said he knew something new needed to happen this year at Lockerbie Academy to mark the scholarship’s 25th anniversary. The result was the creation of the academy’s own Remembrance Week, which is being held simultaneously with SU’s Remembrance Week.

Events for the week include cutting out paper doves on which students can write their hopes and dreams, setting up a display in the library of various archive materials and SU memorabilia and holding a possible Skype session with Lockerbie Scholars.

The academy will also hold its own rose-laying ceremony, in which the Head Boy and Head Girl will lay roses at the memorial cairn in front of the school grounds.

“If we can get this established and keep it going year after year, it will be a poignant way of educating all our students over the years in the heritage we share,” said Asher, who credits the planning of the week to Janet Rogerson, the mother of Joanna Barrie. “Tragic though it may be, it has been a catalyst for so much good between our communities.”

The current Head Boy is Callum Kingstree, a sixth-year student at Lockerbie Academy who plans to apply for the scholarship. Kingstree said he always liked seeing photos and videos of what happened during the Remembrance Week events at SU, adding that it feels special for him to be able to take part of the inaugural ceremony at his own school.

For sixth-year student Abbie Carruthers, stories of the disaster are close to heart, even though she wasn’t alive at the time. Her mother, who studied at the academy in 1988, was in the same class as one of the boys who was killed in the bombing.

Carruthers, who is also planning to apply for the scholarship, said it would be an incredible opportunity to remember the past while looking forward.

“Syracuse has always been at the very front of school life, and it’s always kind of been motivational to do it,” Carruthers said. “If you ask anybody in the community, they would 110 percent emphasize how important this scholarship is.”

Kerry Currie, who recently began working at the academy as a principal teacher, is an alumna of both Lockerbie Academy and the scholarship. She attended SU in the academic year 1996-97.

Though she has only been working at the academy since August, Currie has been a part of the panel that interviews students who are applying for the scholarship for longer than that.

“Being part of that and seeing the applications, seeing the young people and the way they interview and how much they want the scholarship, I see they have got an understanding of why it’s so important and how it came about,” Currie said. “They’ve always got good ideas about how they’re going to continue to inform people about what the scholarship means.”

Currie’s involvement is precisely what Asher, the rector of Lockerbie Academy, is trying to encourage. In the past, he said, there wasn’t enough effort in getting former scholars back on board.

Going forward, Asher wants to utilize those who have been to SU as a resource and continue the growth of the scholarship.

“The motto for the Remembrance Week, for all of this, is to think back and act forward,” Asher said. “That’s what the scholarship’s all about. It’s about giving young people chances that they otherwise would never have had.

“We can never escape the past, but we can shape the future.”

Published on October 27, 2015 at 1:05 am

Contact Clare: clramire@syr.edu