In Memoriam

Six alumni, victims of terrorists, to be honored in inaugural events

Six Brown alumni who perished in New York City, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon will be remembered and honored during inaugural events this weekend.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Members of the Brown University community will pause during three events this inaugural weekend to remember and honor alumni killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

Six alumni remain missing or are known to have perished in the attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon and in the crash of a United Airlines flight in Pennsylvania. They will be memorialized during Friday’s annual Alumni Recognition Ceremony, Saturday’s homecoming football game against Princeton University and a Sunday morning worship service. Those to be honored are:

Donald F. Greene ’71 of Greenwich, Conn., executive vice president of Safe Flight Instrument Corporation. A wrestler during his time at Brown, Greene was the father of two children; he was traveling to a vacation in Lake Tahoe aboard United Airlines Flight 93 when it was hijacked by terrorists and subsequently crashed in Pennsylvania, killing all on board.

Charles Margiotta ’79 of Staten Island, N.Y., father of two children and a former member of the Brown football team. A lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department, Margiotta was responding to the crash at the World Trade Towers when he was killed in the line of duty.

David Laychak ’83 of Manassas, Va., a budget analyst for the Army working at the Pentagon. Laychak, also a member of the football team while at Brown, relocated to Virginia from Sierra Vista, Ariz., last year with his wife and two young children.

Joanne F. Weil ’84 of New York City, the daughter of Floyd Seligman Weil ’54. An attorney with Harris Beach LLP, Weil worked on the 85th floor of World Trade Center Two; of the 113 employees who worked in the firm’s tower office, she is one of five who remain missing.

Raymond Rocha ’95 of Hoboken, N.J., and formerly of Melrose, Mass., was among the 600 employees working for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of World Trade Tower One who perished Sept. 11. A former Brown football player, Rocha began working at Cantor Fitzgerald only a month before the terrorist attacks.

Paul Sloan ’97 of New York City and originally of Novato, Calif., was also a former Brown football player. Last year he accepted a position in the research department at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods on the 89th floor of World Trade Center Two.

On Friday, Oct. 12, at 6 p.m., some 500 alumni leaders and Corporation members will begin the 18th Annual Alumni Recognition Ceremony by observing a moment of silence in memory of the six alumni. Vice President of Alumni Relations Lisa Raiola ’84 will honor them with a memorial reading that will include a poem by David Rokeach.

On Saturday, Oct. 13, during halftime of the noon homecoming football game between Brown and Princeton, David Roach, director of Athletics and Physical Education; Philip Estes, head football coach; and Ronald Daigliesh , director of the Brown University Sports Foundation, will present the families of the deceased Brown football players with framed football jerseys with their numbers. The game will be dedicated to their memory.

On Sunday morning the alumni will again be remembered during a 9 a.m. worship service at the Meeting House of the First Baptist Church in America. University Chaplain Janet Cooper-Nelson said the service will include a prayer of invocation and remembrance for the lost alumni by Javette Pinkney Laremont ’80, president of the Brown Alumni Association, after which the Tougaloo College Concert Choir will sing the Black spiritual “Deep River.” The sermon, “No Time for Foolishness,” will be delivered by the Rev. James Forbes of New York’s Riverside Church. Rev. Forbes has conducted many of the funerals that have followed the events of Sept. 11.

Each of the events is part of a three-day celebration of the inauguration of Ruth J. Simmons as Brown’s 18th president. That ceremony will take place on Sunday at 2 p.m. on The College Green.

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