On Dec. 21, 1988, a terrorist bomb smuggled into the back of Pan Am Flight 103 turned the plane into a fireball, some 30,000 feet over Lockerbie, Scotland.
A total of 270 people died that day.
One of the passengers on Flight 103 was Valerie Canady, an accountant who knew her way around a piano and classical music score.
The 25-year-old who lived and worked in London was flying home to Morgantown for Christmas.
Most of her fellow passengers were American college students, enrolled in international exchange programs at schools across the United Kingdom, who were doing the same.
Back home, at the kitchen table and around the Christmas tree, there would be tales to tell.
Pints.
Pubs.
British boyfriends.
British girlfriends.
And the time you got yourself comically confused by the till lady at Tesco — because you never did figure out the currency.
Lifelong memories of that big history, and big culture, on that little expanse in the North Atlantic.
Then, it was gone.
Just like that.
Instead of a happy reunion with their daughter and only child, Bill and Loulie Canady answered their doorbell to regard two somber-faced FBI agents, accompanied by a Scottish detective, who had to deliver the news.
After they spiraled into their grief, and back out, they decided to do something so people could remember their daughter, at least indirectly.
Now, 34 years later, the latest overture in that mission sounded through WVU’s College of Creative Arts in November.
That’s when 26 students in the college — vocalists, violinists, art historians, linguists, graphic designers and more — were named to the 2022 class of Canady Scholars, for the enrichment of the arts so embraced by Valerie.
In a place where music rings out daily, call it a love song, said Keith Jackson, who is dean of the college.
“Valerie’s parents, Loulie and William, created the Canady Scholars Awards with a belief that the arts and the pursuit of fluency in multiple languages provide humanity with important tools for greater understanding,” he said.
It hasn’t been easy, Loulie Canady told The Dominion Post previously, but she makes herself fix on the fun moments that occurred along the way.
Music and the arts were always part of the Canady household.
Loulie acted and sang in several community theater productions — most of which were recorded by Bill, who was both an ardent audiophile and camera enthusiast.
Valerie, even with her bent for math and science, often shone in those productions, her mother remembered.
She showed an early gift for piano and could send her voice soaring, too, during the big numbers.
To fill the void, the couple kept their relationship with the college.
There’s the scholarship in their daughter’s name, along with a charitable foundation and a chamber music series.
In 2020, the college renamed its creative arts center in appreciation to the family.
Now, when students and residents go there to enjoy a concert or play, or a juried exhibition of art work, they are doing so at the Loulie, Valerie and William Canady Creative Arts Center.
“We had to do something,” Loulie said.
“We just had to have something beautiful come out of something so horrible.”
The recipients
Fei Xia – vocal
Wenjun Xia – piano
Sean Elliott – violin
Lim Jing (Zoey) – music composition
Riley Ann Klug – art history
Ryan Limanto – flute
Annie Moon – horn
Ethan Charles Nylander – flute
Irene Guerra Rudas – violin
Weiyang Sun – piano
Ana Paola Vergara Abascal Sherwell – vocal
Esperanza Abarca – art education/ceramics
Yangyang Cao – piano
Sophia Noelle Villano – acting/Spanish
Lucas Barkley – collaborative piano
Hyunjung “Jenny” Marsat – ceramics
Claudia Sevilla – acting
Joseph Boulos – jazz pedagogy and musicology
Tong Ding – collaborative piano
Gerardo Sanchez Pastrana – cello
Linxi Yang – collaborative piano
Layla Wilson – music therapy
Tatiana Zakharova – graphic design
Ruth Hartmann – cello
Christian James Rhen – jazz studies and composition
Tingyu Yan – vocal
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