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Austin Michelle Cloyd

Austin CloydWith her 6-foot-1 frame and full head of red hair, Austin Michelle Cloyd was impossible to miss.

"She lit up a room, literally, because of her smile, her red hair, her height," said the Rev. Terry Harter.

"She was a little shy. She took a lot of ribbing about her red hair. But she took it well. She was very self-effacing. She had a great sense of humor about herself."

Harter, the senior pastor at First United Methodist Church in Champaign, Ill., and his wife, Martha, knew Cloyd and her family well. The Cloyds were members of First United from 1999 through 2005.

Then they moved to Blacksburg, where Austin’s father, C. Bryan Cloyd, became a faculty member at Virginia Tech, teaching classes in accounting and information systems.

Bryan Cloyd was in a nearby classroom building Monday when Cho Seung-Hui entered Norris Hall on a shooting rampage. Austin Cloyd, who would have been 19 on Tuesday, was among them.

Austin made an indelible impression on the Harters, other members of the First United Methodist congregation and her fellow students from Centennial High School in Champaign.

When the church held an impromptu memorial service Tuesday night, announcing it only by e-mail and word of mouth, 125 people, many of them now college students in the Champaign-Urbana area, attended.

"One of the things our youth group does is the Appalachia Service Project," Terry Harter said. "They go to mountains in West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, Tennessee and western Virginia and rehab homes there.

"After one of those trips, Austin and her mother started a similar program here, and called it the Champaign-Urbana project. That trip really influenced her life."

Martha Harter was Cloyd’s confirmation mentor at First United Methodist.

"She knew that she had been given much and she knew that others needed much," Martha Harter said. "She had a very sensitive spirit."

Cloyd, a freshman at Virginia Tech, was a basketball and volleyball player in high school. She graduated from Blacksburg High School, and she was a lifeguard at the Virginia Tech aquatics center.

She was an international studies and French major, and Martha Harter said Cloyd hoped eventually to spend a semester studying abroad.

"She was a gentle person, and she was her own person," Martha Harter said. "She had a strong core. I never heard a mean word come out of her, even when she was hurt. She handled things with grace. In basketball, in volleyball, she loved being part of a team. She was a ‘It’s not all about me’ person."

— Paul Woody, Media General News Service

Video Remembrance:

  • Austin Cloyd Memorial

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