Three Students Die in Fire at Miami University
 

Please keep in your thoughts and prayers the three students who passed away last night in a fire at Miami University (OH) and their family and friends. In speaking with my sister, a Miami student, she said the campus is having a difficult time with the loss. Read the article from the Miami website below...

http://newsinfo.muohio.edu/news_disp...un_id=40150292

Here is a letter from the Miami University President, Jim Garland, to the university community...obviously this is from before the article above was released...

"The death of three Miami University students in an early Sunday morning off-campus fire has left us all sad, shaken and overwhelmed by the unfairness of life. The three students were known to be at the student rental property last night and they are unaccounted for. As of late this afternoon, two of their three families have been contacted by authorities. We do not expect names to be released until the third family has been reached and until the coroner's office provides official identification.

Oxford officials were at the scene of the fire at 122 N. Main St. within a minute of receiving an emergency cell phone call at 4:31 a.m. Sunday, but the residence was already engulfed in flames. Thankfully, seven students did manage to escape and we are all grateful that more young people did not perish in this tragedy.

We have offered counseling to the survivors and their needs for housing, clothing and food have also been met. The Butler County Red cross has been enormously helpful in this regard.

We are contacting professors about the situation. Although we are not canceling classes, we have asked faculty to be especially understanding and accommodating to those affected by the tragedy. The Miami community is a close-knit community, and I know that many students will need support from the university, their friends and faculty members.

Grief counseling will be available to all students through the Student Counseling Service at 529-4634. Please refer to the university homepage at http://www.muohio.edu/ for regular updates. These will augment the bulletins that we have already emailed to the university community.

Soon, of course, we will turn our attention to understanding the circumstances of this tragedy and taking steps to avoid any recurrence. For now, however, it is time for us to focus our attention on those who need our support. Miami University and the City of Oxford are strong and caring communities, and this is a time for all to rally around those who have suffered a great loss."

One of the women who died in the fire is a Pi Beta Phi. This has easily been the most horrifying day I've had at Miami.

I saw this on the news last night and was hoping that someone from MU could let us know what's going on. My prayers are with the survivors and all the people affected!

This is so sad. Sort of weird too in Oxford, Ohio...three ATO's died this past August in Oxford, MS in a fire....I will prayer for them all.

Julia Hayes Turnbull from *******, Ohio was a senior mass comm. major and a member of Ohio Zeta.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families/friends and community.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected.

:(

Horrible. My heart goes out to the families of these students

wow. what a terrible tragedy. i will keep their families and friends in my thoughts.

My thoughts with the family.

Here's an article from today's Enquirer about the fire.

It's made the free paper here the past two days. I got all teary-eyed on the way to work both days. My thoughts go out to their family and the entire Miami University community. I know the MU community is an amazing one that will pull together for these students that survived the fire. I saw first hand how great the students there are after a fire my junior year and expect no less this time. It is just sad that it has happened again.

That really is a tragedy...my thoughts and prayers are with the victims' families and friends, and all those affected by this situation.

Greeks mobilize to aid fire victims
 

Greeks mobilize to aid fire victims
subscription only
Sororities, fraternities plan fundraising efforts including cookouts, ribbon sale
By Katey Clark
For Cox News Service


OXFORD — In the wake of the recent tragedy, the Miami University Greek community, who lost one of its own — Julia Turnbull, a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority — has immediately started fundraising events in honor of Turnbull, Stephen Smith and Kathryn Welling, who all died in Sunday morning’s fire.

The Greek community is combining forces with all of the chapters to not only honor the three victims, but to also help the eight men who lived in the house.

The original plan was to attempt to raise enough money to buy the eight men new computers. On Tuesday morning, Lindy Mejia, a member of the Alpha Phi sorority who has been working with the Dell Computer Company, received the news that Dell had offered to donate eight computers. “I was hoping that Dell would agree to donate the computers,” Mejia said. “Now that the computers will be donated, we can use the fundraising money to help the students even more. I’m very happy to realize we can help them out in more than one way.”

According to Zeta Tau Alpha President Maggie Lewis, every chapter on campus has agreed they need to help these victims in any way possible. Zeta had a social event planned for Thursday evening with the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity which they cancelled in order to do something more beneficial.

“We are going to hold a cookout and bake sale for the fire victims located at the FIJI house from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.,” Lewis said. “The entire Greek community will be helping out and bringing food to sell.”

Now that Dell has agreed to donate the computers, all of the fund-raising money can be used for another cause to help the victims. An additional idea was to hold a session in awareness about fire coding and students’ rights as tenants.

Alpha Phi President Nina Dadlez has been working with other Greek presidents, including Lewis, to come up with other ways to help.

According to Dadlez, each sorority and fraternity will pass around a bucket for donations at their chapter meetings. There also will be two more fundraising cookouts on April 21 and 22 held at the Phi Delta Theta gates. Dadlez encouraged people from the Miami and Oxford community to stop by and grab a bite to eat and help the men in the house who lost everything.

Greek members will also have a fundraising table set up at Bell Tower where students can donate money during lunch every day next week.

“We will meet with all of the chapters’ presidents and brainstorm ideas on what to do with our raised money,” Dadlez said. “We are thinking about holding a memorial service, or perhaps setting up a scholarship in the victims’ names.” Dadlez said they also will purchase other items for the students who lived in the house like household items, TVs and DVD players. “These guys tragically lost friends, but they lost all of their belongings,” Dadlez said. “They are all seniors and will be moving out on their own next year, so we want to provide them practical things they can use.”

Shannon Sherry, the Phi Mu sorority delegate in the Panhellenic office, said black ribbons would be passed out in the middle of campus yesterday to honor the three lives lost. According to Sherry, the Oxford Flower Shop, and the Alpha House donated 2,500 ribbons, and the Gaskill printing center donated the flier that will accompany the ribbon. The flier reads, “Love and honor to Miami, Forever and a day. On behalf of Miami’s fraternity and sorority community, to the victims’ friends and families of the tragic event on April 10, 2005, our thoughts and prayers are with you. Please wear this ribbon in honor of Stephen Smith, Julia Turnbull and Kathryn Welling.”

“I know the Greek community immediately wanted to get together and help all those affected by the tragedy,” Dadlez said. “We hope to help out as much as possible.”

Re: Greeks mobilize to aid fire victims
 

That is so awesome! :)

It's so great to see everyone pulling together like this. :D