50th victim revealed as grad student
Published: May 17, 2009, 12:30 am
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When the crash of Flight 3407 killed Dipinder Sidhu, he was so missed by school colleagues that California's Claremont University created a scholarship in his memory.
"We really feel honored. We are proud of him still," said his mother, Nirmal, speaking by phone from Texas, after returning from the National Transportation Safety Board hearings in Washington, D.C. last week. "He managed to touch so many people in such a short time." Sidhu had no local ties, and his was the last name revealed locally of the 50 people killed in the Feb. 12 plane crash in Clarence.
Sidhu, a graduate student, was just beginning his second semester of a dual degree in business administration and financial engineering at the Drucker School of Management in Claremont, Calif.
Sidhu, who was a month away from his 30th birthday, was flying to Buffalo to see Niagara Falls and family friends in Toronto.
Shortly after the crash, Sidhu's sister had asked that her brother's name be kept private, as a way to protect her family. But at the hearings in Washington, Nirmal Sidhu spoke about her son with pride. She later talked about him at length by phone from her home in Texas. “He was a person who was really looking forward to so many things in life,” said his mother, Nirmal, who lives in Texas with her husband, Surinder. “We’re just reeling under the shock. …. It seems like we had a whole bunch of good guys on the plane that day. … That’s the saddest part.”
A high school English teacher in Houston, Nirmal Sidhu had advocated teaching to her son. He was a computer science major as an undergraduate, and he pleased her when he said he was offering a free Saturday class in computer code so that his California graduate school classmates would have a better shot at getting work after graduating.
She said his expansive approach to life started when he was a boy and the family moved from India to Liberia. Until the 1990 civil war that led them to settle in the United States, her husband worked on a water and sewer project in Monrovia, and she had taught English at a university.
His sister, Natasha, a pediatrician, is in her first year of residency in Las Vegas. Weeks before taking the flight to Buffalo, Sidhu went to India to see his aunt and check on her daughter, a cousin he considered to be his other sister. She just started her first year of medical school.
“He told her, “As long as you study, you don’t worry about money,’ ” his mother said.
“It’s been devastating,” Nirmal Sidhu said.
Claremont Graduate University established a scholarhsip in his memory. The Dipinder Sidhu Memorial Fellowship is intended for students who demonstrate a combination of academic skill and community service that is similar to Dipinder Sidhu's approach.
e-mail mkearns@buffnews.com
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