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Prior days' news: By date | Search This week's print issue Back issues: By date | Search April 19, 2007Brian R. BluhmBrian R. Bluhm’s friends say he always wore a smile on his face and a Detroit Tigers cap on his head. Mr. Bluhm, 25, was a graduate student in civil engineering who had earned an undergraduate degree in the same subject at Virginia Tech. He was studying water resources and had planned to take a job in Baltimore after finishing his master’s degree this semester.  Photo by Michael Marshall Mr. Bluhm was an avid Tigers fan, and his death was announced at the stadium before the team’s game on April 17 against the Kansas City Royals. Curtis Granderson, the Tigers’ starting center fielder, paid tribute to Mr. Bluhm in a blog entry. On Mr. Granderson’s MySpace Web page, the player said that he would leave Mr. Bluhm among his list of “top friends” on the site as a small tribute. Mr. Bluhm spent several years living outside of Detroit as a child, though he was born in Iowa and attended high school in Louisville, Ky. At Virginia Tech, he was active in the Baptist Collegiate Ministries. Darrell Cook, the campus minister for the group at Virginia Tech, says the conversations he had with Brian usually revolved around one of three topics: academics, his faith in God, or the Detroit Tigers. “He was passionately invested in all three,” Mr. Cook writes in an e-mail message, “but usually the Tigers would bring out that passion the quickest.” Mr. Cook said that Mr. Bluhm was often quiet in groups but had a “playful side,” too. Mr. Bluhm was “shocked,” Mr. Cook says, when he learned that the minister’s children had never seen one of his favorite television programs, The Muppet Show So Mr. Bluhm insisted on lending the Cook family his DVD of the first season of the show, Mr. Cook says, and “Brian was an instant hero to my kids.” —Sara Hebel Posted on Thursday April 19, 2007 | Permalink | |