Picture of Austin Cloyd
Lives Lost
Austin Cloyd, age unknown, was a freshman majoring in international studies and French.
Cloyd, born in Charlotte, N.C., lived in central Illinois with her family for several years before moving to Blacksburg. She graduated from Blacksburg High School.
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, age unknown, a French language teacher and former Montreal resident, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Couture-Nowak was instrumental in the creation of the first French school in a town in Nova Scotia.
She lived there in the 1990s with her husband, Jerzy Nowak, the head of the horticulture department at Virginia Tech.
“She was outgoing, friendly, a warm kid with a good sense of humor, very caring,” Harter said. “It’s just horrible.”
Richard Landry, a spokesman with the francophone school board in Truro, Nova Scotia, said Couture-Nowak was one of three mothers who pushed for the founding of the Ecole acadienne de Truro in 1997.“It was very important for her daughters to be taught in French,” said Rejean Sirois, who worked with her in establishing the school.
Elizabeth Taggart, of Reston, Va., posted to MSNBC.com that she had stayed in touch with her freshman French teacher despite switching to Spanish last semester. "My Spanish class was in the classroom in Norris right after hers at 10:10," said Taggart. "She and I had reconnected this semester since I would always arrive early to keep up with my French."
Taggart remembers her former teacher as a "one of the most caring, loving teachers I have met on our campus, an incredible professor and woman."