'Looking for Lockerbie'
by Lawrence Mason Jr and Melissa
Chessher
| For most
Americans, the words “Lockerbie, Scotland” evoke one image:
the iconic photograph of the battered nose cone of a Pan
Am jumbo jet surrounded by bodies, investigators, and debris
on a lonely hillside. For members of the Syracuse University
community, the words represent the loss of 35 students,
who died returning from a semester abroad when their jet
exploded over Lockerbie. The terrorist bombing of Pan Am
Flight 103 on December 21, 1988, killed all 259 people aboard,
plus 11 Lockerbie residents, in a tragedy that remained
the deadliest terror attack on U.S. citizens until 9/11.
The event forever linked the families of the victims of
Pan 103 with Lockerbie, whose residents provided unending
help and sympathy to victims’ families.
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Greatly touched
by the warmth and generosity of Lockerbie's inhabitants, two Syracuse
University professors and a group of student writers and photographers
set out to expand the world's understanding of the small town—its
history and nature, and the lives of its residents—redefining
Lockerbie beyond the events of one fateful day. On many trips
over 12 years, photography professor Lawrence Mason, Jr, and magazine
professor Melissa Chessher brought more than 50 students to capture
the town in images and words.
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Through stunning photographs and personal vignettes, Looking
for Lockerbie introduces to the world some of Lockerbie’s
most engaging personalities, events, and places: its last
milk delivery man, its boy racers, and a local model; a
Burns supper and the town’s annual gala; its cheese factory,
its high school, one of the area’s few remaining rural schools,
a Tibetan Buddhist monastary, and many of the castles, ancient
stone sites, and Roman landmarks that make this borderland
town historically significant. The book celebrates the connection
between a “wee” Scottish town and an American university,
forged from the grief and sorrow arising from a single horrific
air disaster.
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Lawrence Mason Jr is professor of visual and interactive
communications in the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications
at Syracuse University. His photographs have appeared in
such publications as The New York Times and US News and
World Report. He is a former staff photographer and picture
editor at the Syracuse Herald Journal.
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| Associate
professor Melissa Chessher is a freelance writer and former
magazine editor. She serves as chairperson of the Magazine
Department and director of the graduate program in magazine,
newspaper, and online journalism at SI Newhouse School of
Public Communications at Syracuse University.
See brief film at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh-OGnkpuzY
Copies of this book are available only from Lockerbie
Academy price £40, (Cheques payable to Lockerbie Academy)
or telephone 01576 202626/202189 or e-mail loffice682@ea.dumgal.sch.uk.
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