Collegiate Times

Ellen Biltz
Associate News Editor

A memorial service will be held this weekend for a Virginia Tech student who died last week from suspected alcohol poisoning, authorities said.
Thomas Hauser will be remembered by friends and family in the Slusher Quad at 1 p.m. Sunday.
?It?s been completely student planned and it will be student read,? said Tom Brown, interim director for Student Programs.
Slusher Quad was chosen for the memorial because Hauser?s friends felt it was the best place for him to be remembered, Brown said.
?A lot of his friends met him at Slusher ? friendships grew from there,? said Jon Griffin, one of Hauser?s friends.
Griffin, a senior hospitality and tourism management major, is helping to plan the service and said he wants everyone to remember how good a person Hauser really was.
?He was one of those guys that, when you looked at him, you couldn?t help but smile,? he said.
Along with Griffin, some of Hauser?s other friends will be planting a tree at the memorial service.
?By putting a tree there, we know he?s always going to be remembered. He?s always going to be a part of this campus. When people take pictures in the Slusher Squad and the tree is in the picture, Tom (Hauser) becomes part of that memory,? said Sara Eigenbrot, a recent accounting major graduate.
Along with a tree-planting, there will also be a priest speaking at the memorial, Brown said.
?He will give a small speech, but not much. His friends are doing most of the service,? Brown said.
Another friend of Hauser?s, Jon Burke, a junior business construction major, said he kept thinking about how excited Hauser was to be a Hokie. Hauser had taken time away from school and returned this year. Burke said that Hauser recently switched to a history major and was a much happier student than he ever had been.
?He knew more about history than I ever could have imagined knowing,? Burke said. ?He knew every Jeopardy history question on TV.?
While Hauser?s family is not commenting on the death, Brown said both parents as well as one of Hauser?s brothers will be at Sunday?s service. Brown said Hauser?s mother is a school teacher and had been very appreciative of Hauser?s friends.
?She?s a very caring person,? he said.
Griffin said he wants people not to remember the sad death of Hauser, but instead remember his life as a happy Hokie.
?This is not a service for his death, it?s a service to celebrate his life,? he said.
Hauser passed away Sept. 19, when friends found him unconscious after a night spent in downtown Blacksburg.
Blacksburg police have not yet finalized the cause of Hauser?s death, but preliminary investigations lead them to believe alcohol poisoning was a factor, said Lt. Don Goodman of the Blacksburg Police