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Prior days' news: By date | Search This week's print issue Back issues: By date | Search April 18, 2007Henry LeeBefore Henry Lee’s graduation speech last spring at William Fleming High School, in Roanoke, Va., the principal’s secretary stuffed a precautionary wad of tissues into her boss’s program. The principal, Susan Lawyer Willis, needed them. Mr. Lee’s speech, as salutatorian of the 2006 graduating class, “truly moved me to tears,” she says. In the speech, which he had balked at delivering, Mr. Lee recounted his determination to succeed, despite speaking little English when he immigrated to the United States from China as a young child.  Photo by Jennifer Whittaker That same spring, Mr. Lee, 20, became an American citizen and changed his name, from Henh Ly to Henry Lee. He told his teachers he just liked the name Henry, Ms. Willis says. Mr. Lee was an outstanding student at William Fleming, excelling in mathematics and earning the rigorous International Baccalaureate diploma. He was also a member of the National French Honor Society. When academic awards and scholarships were handed out at a special ceremony at the end of the year, he won so many that faculty members invited him to sit on the stage, rather than to continually make the trek back and forth to his seat. Mr. Lee was studying computer engineering at Virginia Tech. “He was going to do great things, and he was going to contribute to our society in a great way,” Ms. Willis says. “What we’re grieving, what I’m grieving right now, is that lost opportunity.” —Karin Fischer Posted on Wednesday April 18, 2007 | Permalink |Comments |
Our Adrian College, Adrian, Michigan, TRIO students and staff wish to extend our thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of Upward Bound student Henry Lee, a person of so much promise. Please know that we share, in a small way, your inestimable grief.
— Jane Apr 20, 04:33 PM #