The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks, The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."

Ervin remembered as a strong-willed and determined

As the voices of those who gathered to celebrate the life of Angela Ervin fought through the tears to express what her life meant to them, it was apparent she breathed happiness into those she had come to know.

To close friend Marshall Osbey, who drove home to Chicago from Connecticut shortly after learning Ervin, 21, had died after being hit by a pick-up truck on Sept. 21, Ervin was an evolutionary mind who, along with himself, used to give their teachers "hell in high school."

To Pamela Smoot, a teacher of Ervin's at SIUC who helped orchestrate the Wednesday memorial at the Newman Catholic Student Center, she was a "great child who made love."

And to her mother Valerie Brown, she was, as she put succinctly, her joy.

For the more than 60 people in attendance, Ervin's life was a message of love and understanding and of human spirit she believed could conquer stereotypes and ignorance.

Before the memorial began, Father Joseph Brown, who said he normally does not lead services for his students, told the crowd "nobody is going to tell me God took her. No. She died. But still she lives, because here we are singing and celebrating ... She called us here to bless one another."

The most glaring aspect of Ervin, who was in her senior year at Southern Illinois, was her will to educate herself.

Smoot, known as a teacher who will force a person to learn by those who have taken her class, said she questioned Ervin's sanity when she signed up for three of her classes in one semester.

Smoot asked her, "Have you lost your natural mind?" to which Ervin replied "I know exactly what I am doing."

"That was when I understood the strength of this young black woman, to take three of Dr. Smoot's classes at the same time," Smoot said, with a chuckle from the crowd following.

As the ceremony neared its end, a procession of friends and teachers lined up to all tell a piece of what they learned from Ervin.

Valerie Brown said witnessing people express their thoughts and memories of Ervin lightened the emotional burden of losing her daughter.

"This is all becoming real to me each day," Brown said. "So in a way this has helped me."

Her father Clarence Ervin, of Tuskegee, Ala., said he did not understand the impact his daughter had on both her peers and even her teachers. Not only did she sparkle as a person, but she taught people life.

"I've always known she was strong-willed and ambitious, but to know she spread it amongst everybody she met, that really helped me," Clarence Ervin said. "Even though she spent just a short time here, I believe she did what she was here to do."

 

 

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