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Henh Ly

Henh LyHenh Ly couldn’t speak English when his Chinese family arrived in the United States during his early elementary school years.

But he’d amassed impressive credentials by graduation last spring from William Fleming High School in Roanoke, Va.

He was class salutatorian with a grade-point average of 4.47 and a newly naturalized American citizen.

Susan Lawyer Willis, principal of his high school, recalled yesterday how she had to convince Ly to share his story at graduation.

"He said to the crowd, ‘When I came to this country, I couldn’t speak English. Now, I’m number two in the class,’" she recalled. "He valued his education. It was so heartfelt. It moved us all to tears. He was proud of his American citizenship."

As a reflection of that pride, Ly, a freshman majoring in computer engineering, started going by "Henry" at Virginia Tech. That brought him some friendly ribbing from math teacher Jonathan Bayer when Ly returned to high school during winter break.

"He was happy. He was upbeat," Bayer said. "He came to rub it in our faces that he got a month off."

Ly was part of a large family from China that came to the United States by way of Vietnam, according to school officials and longtime friend Amanda Theller. She said yesterday that she and other friends have been unable to come to grips with Ly’s death.

"Our friends are mourning deeply because we don’t understand why, and we may never know," Theller wrote in an e-mail.

A memorial service for Ly is scheduled for Sunday at William Fleming.

Jackie O’Neill, who taught Ly as a sophomore in an AP government class, said he was just fun to be around. She struggled to recall a story that seemed worthy of his memory.

"What can anyone say? This was one of the best," she said of Ly. "We were all enriched by being around him."

Willis was holding onto the image of Ly at graduation — a confident, mature young man.

"I watched him evolve over that year, and he was ready to now move on. He was ready to be a computer engineer."

— Will Jones, Media General News Service

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