Daniel Alejandro Perez Cueva

• Age: 21
• Class: Junior
• Major: International Studies
• Hometown: Woodbridge, Va.
• High school: C.D. Hylton
• Parents: Betty Cueva, Flavio Perez
• Blacksburg residence: Foxridge

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Danny Perez left his homeland and attended two high schools and two community colleges before enrolling at Virginia Tech last fall.

He was barely more than a year from a college degree — a dream that fueled him since emigrating from Peru with his mother and sister in 2000 — when he was killed Monday in French class at Norris Hall.

“Anything he put his mind to, he accomplished it,” said Hugo Quintero, a close friend and former classmate at C.D. Hylton High School in Woodbridge. “He’s a guy who not only dreams, but makes dreams come true.”

Mariel Morales, Perez’s English as a Second Language instructor at Hylton, remembered him as “a bright young man” who worked hard, as did his mother, Betty Cueva, to fund his college education.

Perez attended Woodbridge High and Hylton for two years each, then spent single years at Miami Dade (Fla.) College and Northern Virginia Community College.

“This is a wonderful family here,” Morales said. “A humble family that just wanted to grow. … This tragedy happens and I don’t know what is going to happen now, but I trust that God will help them, will guide them.

“He was really a special person, let me tell you.”

In high school, Perez was an accomplished swimmer who also played tennis and ran cross-country. He was a member of the National Honor Society and graduated with honors in 2004.

“He was like a brother to me,” said Quintero, a senior at George Mason University. “I’m an only child, so he was like a brother to me.”

Perez also lavished attention on Shiloh, the year-old basset hound whose photo he set at the front of his personal profile at Facebook.com.

On Tuesday afternoon, the family home in Woodbridge was busy with relatives, friends and former teachers, Morales said.

“He still is in our hearts,” Morales said of the Hylton teachers who remembered Perez fondly, three years after his graduation. “That’s how special he was.”

Perez’s father, Flavio Perez, still lives in Peru, and spoke of the death earlier to a radio network there. He said he was trying to obtain a humanitarian visa. He is separated from Cueva.

A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Lima said the student’s father “will receive all the attention possible when he applies” for the visa.

Quintero said he always saw Perez as a role model to emulate, though they were the same age. He recalled telling Perez how honored he was to have him as a friend.

“I told him, 'Hey, when I get married, you’re going to be my best man,’ ” Quintero said. “He was like, 'Thanks, man. You too.’ …

“He was an amazing friend. I will never forget that.”

— Jim Reedy and Associated Press