Times Union, Albany, USA
Section: MAIN
Page: A8
FRIDAY, June 2, 1989SU COACH TO ATTEND LOCKERBIE PARTY
Associated Press
Syracuse University football coach Dick MacPherson left Thursday to attend a party for residents in Lockerbie, Scotland, where 270 people were killed in the December crash of Pan Am Flight 103.
Victims of Flight 103, a group of relatives of crash victims, planned to picket Saturday at Pan Am's New York City headquarters to protest the airline's help in organizing the party.
More than 3,000 people are expected for the all-day party in the community where 11 residents were killed when the plane exploded and crashed.
Pan Am has recruited and paid for the transportation of American food, entertainers and personalities, including MacPherson.
MacPherson was chosen because of his popularity as a football coach and as a representative of Scottish-Americans, his secretary Karen Ponzo said. He is not going specifically as a university representative, she said.
Thirty-five of the victims in the bombing were enrolled in the university's foreign studies program.
In Syracuse, a demonstration was planned for 2 p.m. Saturday at Hancock International Airport by the girlfriend of an Ohio man killed in the Dec. 21 crash. Friends and relatives of others killed plan to picket airports in Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh.
"Why have a barbecue when they gave us one on Dec. 21?" said Nichole Campbell of Syracuse, whose boyfriend, Peter Vulcu, 21, of Alliance, Ohio, was returning from a semester in Romania when he was killed.
"He (MacPherson) certainly did not feel he would hurt anyone by going there," Ponzo said. She said she understood the party to be part of an annual spring festival in Lockerbie.
Amidst the objections, several U.S. corporations withdrew their support of the party.
Pan Am has maintained it isn't the sponsor of the party and that the airline is only trying to help a 14-year- old New Jersey boy who came up with the idea to help cheer up the citizens of Lockerbie.