Classmates, friends remember students

Students gathered with friends and family -- some who had come from all around the country -- for the weekend of the 54th Little 500. But some gathered near the music school, not in celebration, but in mourning.\nThe recent loss of five friends to a plane crash had hit them hard.\n"When I found out, I was pretty shaken up," said Yeji Cha, a sophomore and violin performance major, who was a student of one of the victims of the crash, Robert Samels. "I just kept imagining him joking in class. I just couldn't believe he was gone."\nCha sat with her friends at a table in the Music Library building Saturday morning, discussing her grief and her memories of Samels.\n"I had just had class with him," she said. "He was such an influential teacher. He was everything you could ever wish for in a teacher."\nCha's friend Bobby Huang sat at the table with her. He didn't know any of the people killed in the crash and isn't even a music major, but he said he still feels affected by the tragedy.\n"It was very sad -- a lot of people were crying," said Huang, a senior majoring in accounting. "But it makes you feel warm inside to see this because the music school is so big but so many people still care."\nHuang said he was first told of the news when a friend called him and told him some of her friends had been killed in a plane crash.\n"I thought I didn't hear her right," he said.\nAmbrose Fu, a sophomore majoring in piano and ethnomusicology, said some of her friends were devastated by the news.\n"This girl was just bawling and talking on the phone about a plane crash," she said. "I went to music theory class, and people were running out of class crying."\nOne building over at the Musical Arts Center, some students gathered Friday afternoon to deal with their grief through prayer.\n"I am able to deal with this by the grace of God, and I can't imagine how much more difficult it would be for those who don't have that," said Abigail Koo, who set up the impromptu prayer circle Friday afternoon in Clouse's Lounge in the music school where friends and peers gathered to talk and pray. \n"We were very comforted by the fact that we had each other," said Koo, who is also a member of the Adventist Students for Christ.\nIn addition, Koo provided construction paper and colored pencils in the lounge so that students could make cards for the five victims' families.\n"I want their families to know that they were loved, and they will be remembered," Koo said, adding that everyone in the school knew them and "they were IU stars. They were the best singers."\nA classmate of victims Garth Eppley and Zack Novak, Koo said Friday that she was still having trouble believing what had really happened.\n"Garth just gave a presentation to my class yesterday," she said, adding, "We're not going to meet and feel the same way again."\nAlthough it was difficult to speak at times, Koo said it was important to not stay silent.\n"I've been trying to talk as much as I can," she said. "If we all keep it inside, it's not going to help. We need each other"