BLACKSBURG, Va. | Austin Cloyd, who attended high school in Illinois, was among 33 people killed at Virginia Tech in the deadliest college shooting in modern U.S. history.
The 18-year-old international studies major dreamed of someday working for the United Nations, her father said.
The Cloyds were active members of the First United Methodist Church in Champaign, Ill., the Rev. Terry Harter said. The family moved in 2005 when Cloyd's father, C. Bryan Cloyd, took a job in the accounting department at Virginia Tech, Harter said.
Harter, whose church held a prayer service for the family Tuesday night, described Cloyd as a "very delightful, intelligent, warm young lady" and an athlete who played basketball and volleyball in high school.
She was so inspired by an Appalachian service project that helped rehab homes that she and her mother started a similar program in Illinois. The mission trips to Appalachia showed just how caring and faithful she was, Harter said.
"It made an important impact on her life, that's the kind of person she was," he said.
Her father said she wanted to work for the United Nations, "in hopes of fostering peace in a troubled world."
The gunman in Monday's massacre was identified as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English. Before police closed in, he turned the gun on himself bringing the death toll to 33. Police and university officials have not offered clues on a motive for the killings.
C. Bryan Cloyd and his wife Renee said they started searching local hospitals Monday when they didn't hear from their daughter.
"Austin was the most wonderful daughter in the world," her father said. "Austin's parents, brother and extended family and friends want everyone to know that the world has lost a very special person."
At least two other students from the Chicago area were affected by the shootings.
Garrett Evans, a Virginia Tech senior who grew up in Chicago, was wounded in the legs. The 30-year-old said he was in a classroom the gunman entered.
"I'm in pain," he said, "but my heart's in way more pain than my legs."
Jeffrey Dawley, of Naperville, Ill., is a senior at Virginia Tech. The 21-year-old said he knew six people who were killed in the massacre.
"It's just a very surreal experience," he said. "...It truly is mind-boggling."
