When Greg Mayes heard Pan Am Flight 103 had gone down, leading to the death of its 259 passengers — 35 of them Syracuse University students — he got into his car and went to buy flowers.

Twenty-five years later, Mayes still remembers driving around campus — which he said felt like a “ghost town” — delivering the flowers.

Mayes, who was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity at the time, got out of his car and laid flowers in front of each fraternity and sorority house that had lost someone on the flight.

On Dec. 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 went down over Lockerbie, Scotland. On the plane were 35 SU students returning from studying abroad in London and Florence.

Many students, like Mayes, were still on campus for final exams when news of the bombing broke. 

“I remember walking to my last final exam one extremely cold December morning and I think it was the last final exam slot. NBC News was trying to interview me as I crossed the Quad. There was just a lot of thoughts going through my mind,” Mayes said. “I went and somehow got through my last final exam. Whoever that professor was I want to thank them in their generosity in the grading. I don’t know how well I was prepared for that final after what had transpired the day or two before that.”

When Mayes heard about the creation of the Remembrance Scholar program, he knew he wanted to be a part of it. Mayes selected to be part of the first class of Remembrance Scholars, which was selected for the 1989-1990 school year.

Today, the program is still at SU. Though Mayes became a Remembrance Scholar in his junior year, the university now selects 35 seniors — one to represent each of the SU students lost on the flight — as Remembrance Scholars. 

“When Pan Am happened, SU decided that we needed to remember the students lost and the obvious way to do that at a university was to establish a scholarship in their honor,” Judy O’Rourke, director of undergraduate studies, said in an email.

The Remembrance Scholars established Remembrance Week in the mid-1990s because, at the time, few students on campus had personal connections to the bombing. The week was created to educate students about the history of Pan Am Flight 103 and to discuss terrorism, O’Rourke said.

The experience of being a Remembrance Scholar has certainly evolved throughout the years. None of the Remembrance Scholars on campus today were alive in 1988 when the bombing happened.

In 1989, the campus wasn’t remembering; the bombing wasn’t a distant memory. It was still a fresh wound, and the university was still shrouded in a cloud of grief.

Twenty-five years later, the week is about remembering. The mood and the week of events have evolved from one of raw emotion to one of thoughtful reflection.

Many of today’s scholars have interactions with the families of the victims they represent.

In 1989, that wasn’t the case. Michael Mason, who was also selected as a junior to be part of the first group of Remembrance Scholars, said interaction with the family wasn’t part of that first year’s ceremonies.

His memories of the families come from the memorial service held in the Carrier Dome. The scene Mason saw is one that has stuck with him. He wrote about it in the essay portion of his application to become a Remembrance Scholar.

During the memorial, he watched one specific family: a father, a mother and a few siblings of one of the victims.

“[They were] just huddled together at that memorial service and just kind of rocking back and forth and having to deal with the reality of the moment. The thought that I had at the time was that that could have easily been my family — I have a brother and a sister,” Mason said. “This happened to real people and it was real. So much of college is not reality, at least it wasn’t back then, but that’s when it really hit me. This was a much bigger deal of just losing a few people. The effect on the families was significant.”

In 1989, Mason said, it was easy to recognize what being a Remembrance Scholar was about. The students were there for it all: They had gone to the memorial service in the Carrier Dome, taken finals amid of the tragedy and had personal connections to the students who died.

Today’s scholars don’t have that same historical frame of reference. It’s important, he said, that everyone remember these 35 students as real people.

“They walked around, they went to class, they ate in the dining halls, they lived on campus, they had friends, they went to parties. They did all the things that kids your age are doing now. We may have done it a little differently, but really when you break it down college life probably hasn’t changed all that much,” Mason said.

For both Mayes and Mason, there’s something special about being part of the inaugural class of Remembrance Scholars. Mayes said it’s still on his resume. It’s something he tells his children about.

When he brought his sons to SU for lacrosse camps, Mayes said, he took them to the Place of Remembrance, which was dedicated in 1990 in front of the Hall of Languages, and told them about Pan Am Flight 103 and the connection he has to the 35 students.

Mason was there for the memorial’s dedication. They played bagpipes, traditional of Scotland. It’s a sound that Mason’s mind conjures up every now and then, and one that always brings him back.

Said Mason: “Every time I hear bagpipes from here on to the rest of my life it brings back the memory of standing on top of the hill in front of the Hall of Languages and dedicating the memorial to the people.”

Published on October 7, 2013 at 12:16 am

Contact Casey: cffabris@syr.edu | @caseyfabris