Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Julia Pryde: Student channeled love of outdoors into helping others quality
Julia Pryde
- Age: 23
- Class: Graduate student
- Major: Biological systems engineering
- Hometown: Middletown, N.J.
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Robert Jacks and Julia Pryde just finished co-writing a grant.
Two Saturdays ago, they took part in a stream cleanup.
Then, Wednesday afternoon, Jacks and other friends found themselves delivering a care package to Pryde’s mourning parents — leaving a collection of granola bars and organic drinks — “Julia food.”
Late Monday, Pryde was identified as one of the Virginia Tech massacre’s 33 victims.
Those who knew the graduate student describe Pryde as an outdoors lover who was passionate about the environment, a committed young lady with hopes of possibly earning a doctorate and working overseas in developing nations.
Mary Leigh Wolfe knew Pryde for most of college. The professor was Pryde’s undergraduate and graduate advise r. After earning her bachelor’s degree in 2006 in biological systems engineering, Pryde traveled with Wolfe and others last summer to a poor, mountainous region of Ecuador, where her interest was improving water quality for the area’s people.
Before a shooter’s bullet took her life during an engineering class on hydrology, Pryde was planning another Ecuador trip this summer to collect data for her thesis.
She was concerned about environmental quality, environmental justice. But what made her stand out, Wolfe said, was that Pryde took her passion and did something.
For instance, she completed a research project encouraging the campus to turn food waste into compost. Wolfe said an undergraduate group is trying to persuade the university to implement the system.
Outside the classroom, Pryde was an active member of Seek Education, Explore, DiScover — SEEDS — a non profit youth education organization.
Jacks, a 20-year-old sophomore, met Pryde through the group this school year. Although graduate studies alone filled her schedule, Jacks estimates Pryde spent hundreds of hours doing volunteer work for SEEDS, participating in stream cleanups, leading children on hikes, even teaching him to play Hacky Sack .
“She had a very helping, giving nature to her,” Jacks said. “You could tell by her spirit.”
When there was no word from Pryde after the shooting, Jacks said her parents began driving from New Jersey. At the Inn at Virginia Tech, her family learned their daughter was dead, not merely missing.
By Tuesday, her hometown newspaper, New Jersey’s Star-Ledger, ran a story about her death. A friend who left a comment on the paper’s Web site recalled Pryde’s kindness, even when it came to bugs.
“And even though she had to collect some of the insects for … classes,” wrote a person using the name vtknight, “she felt so bad that they had to die in order for her to collect them.”
That’s what people will remember when they think of Pryde, Wolfe said — her passion, her heart and her interest.
“Everyone has wonderful memories,” she said. “Wonderful stories to say about her.”
— Erinn Hutkin
