Ross Alameddine

Twenty-year-old Ross Alameddine, like each of the 32 victims of Monday’s tragedy, was a unique component of Virginia Tech’s tight-knit community.

He was the kind of light-hearted jokester who put everyone around him in a better mood. Charismatic and extremely outgoing,

Ross’ presence was felt in every one of his classes. He was always willing to share his mind with the class, and weighed in on just about every topic.

In a major such as English, where often a student will only get out of the class as much as he puts in, Ross almost always put forth 100 percent.

Brent Stevens is an English professor who had Ross as a student for three semesters. He remembers Ross as an outstanding class participant who loved sharing personal stories and experiences in class discussion.

“He talked in every class I ever taught him. He was just such an imaginative kid. He is the kind of student you count on showing up. I remember it was harder to get students to talk when he was absent, to get conversation going in class. He talked about his life, his emotions and offered deep insights into the materials.

“He put himself out there in front of 35 people, most of whom he did not know. It took me years into my teaching before I was comfortable doing that, and here was this 19 year old, helping us to understand what we were reading and viewing with his unique perspective,” Stevens said.

Stevens also recalled a night where he was forced to bring dinner to the 7 p.m. class he had with Ross.

“I had to bring fries and a burger to class one day, and I remember Ross looked at me, took out his cell phone, and asked if he could order a pizza.”

That was the kind of levity Ross brought with him everywhere he went. He especially had a gift for bringing laughter into the classroom.

Whether it was through his jokes, astute comments, or humorous anecdotes, Ross was the kind of classmate who made school a little less bland, and a little more engaging.

Ed Weathers, another of Ross’ English professors, remembers him as an intelligent student who, according to Weathers, “always smiled, even when he wasn’t feeling well.”

“He had just recently declared English to be his major, and he would have been good at it, since he wrote in a fresh, honest, lively, witty, idiosyncratic voice. He liked to make people laugh. On the first day of my class, he wrote that he was trying to choose between English and

French as a major and that my class would be the deciding factor. ‘No pressure’, he wrote. And of course I laughed, as he wanted me to,” Weathers said in an e-mail remembering Ross.

Weathers also mentioned a project Ross was working on that utilized his gift for humor in way that could benefit Tech.

“For his final project in professional writing, Ross proposed to write
a feasibility report that looked into the possibility of making and selling Virginia Tech products that ‘have humor and parody in mind.’

“He wanted to sell these products — especially wise-cracking T-shirts — through a computer retailer. He wanted people associated with

Virginia Tech to have souvenirs that made them laugh,” Weathers wrote.

It would have been a fitting project for Ross, a person who brought so much laughter and joy to the lives of people fortunate enough to have known him.

Ross’ sister, Yvonne, expressed her pride in her brother and his influence here at Tech in a message sent on Wednesday.

“My brother is a spectacular human being, gifted in every way. I’m so happy he impacted others’ lives so positively and I’m so proud of him,” Yvonne wrote.