UF students and professors gathered at a candlelight vigil Monday night to honor two UF engineering students who died in a car accident Jan. 26.
About 75 people who knew Maria Bahamon, 20, and Daniel Sacks, 19, attended the ceremony at the Reitz Union Amphitheater, organized by Joseph Hartman, chairman of the UF Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
Bahamon and Sacks died in a single-car accident in Mississippi, where they were interning at Entergy Nuclear, a utilities company, and sharing an apartment.
Maria Villalobos and Cynthia Germain, both UF engineering juniors, stood side-by-side behind a lectern Monday night as they shared Bahamon's impact on their lives.
Villalobos said she and Bahamon started at UF together last fall as transfer students from Broward Community College. She and Bahamon were always together, she said, whether they were in class, cooking, watching TV or camping.
"We shared too many special moments that I will never forget," Villalobos said.
Pramod Khargonekar, dean of the College of Engineering, said remembering Sacks was "a sad occasion."
"I remember him as a really bright young man," Khargonekar said. "It's just sad, so sad to see such a wonderful young man taken away from us."
UF sophmore Cynthia Lane said before the vigil she knew Sacks since high school. She said he was a classic-music lover, a prankster and an older-brother figure in her life.
"With us girls, he always made sure we weren't dressed inappropriately," Lane said with a smile.
Following remarks from crowd members, Hartman led the crowd in a few minutes of silence among the twinkling of candles.
Afterward, the students gathered at the front of the amphitheater to look at pictures of Bahamon and Sacks, which will be sent to their parents.
Juan Bij-Kebbe, a UF electrical engineering junior, said Bahamon's positive example has been on his mind since he learned of her death.
"I'm gonna remember her because she reminds me of everything that I want to do," Bij-Kebbe said. "She's in this candle, I feel."
