Memorial planned for sophomore crash victim

Ian Kincheloe

His favorite song will be played, friends will speak and an electronic photo collage will be displayed during a memorial service for a JMU sophomore who died last November. The memorial will take place Jan. 26 at 1 p.m. in Burruss room 44.

During Ian Kincheloe's memorial, attendants will come together to celebrate his life by listening to music by the band Radiohead and having friends, faculty and family speak about him as well as viewing a slideshow dedicated to Kincheloe, according to sophomore Kristin Perret, Kincheloe's girlfriend.

During the service Joanne Gabbin, director of the honors program, will read a poem entitled "A Poem of Praise," by Sonia Sanchez.

Gabbin picked the poem for the reason that Sanchez wrote it. "[The poem] was inspired by the untimely death of one of [Sanchez's] students at Amherst College," she said.
Gabbin accepted Kincheloe into the Honors Program in 2000.

"He was first in his class and had a high school GPA of 4.0," Gabbin said. "I am very proud that we were able to attract to JMU someone with the excellent skills of Ian."

Perret made a conscious effort to plan the memorial to include things important to Kincheloe. They picked the band Radiohead because it was Kincheloe's favorite band, according to Perret. "He liked them because their music deals with actual issues of our society. He thought that their music was understated and [Radiohead's] Thom Yorke was a good vocalist."

Even the location of the memorial has meaning to it.

"Burruss was Ian's favorite building on campus," Perret said. "He was a biology major — so he was required to take a majority of his classes in that building."

Perret reflected on how Kincheloe would like to be remembered and his dreams. "I think Ian would want other people to become better educated about the materialistic ways of western society," she said. "He would want people to be aware of third world debt [and] to visit www.dropthedebt.org. He would want people to laugh, love and watch out for each other."