By Courtney Anderson
SHARON — Megan Adovasio of Sharon was just starting her senior year of high school when the world was turned upside down.
Now, she’s finishing her college degree thanks in part to a scholarship memorializing Sharon native Rebecca Koborie, who died Sept. 11, 2001, in One World Trade Center.
It’s been five years since John and Julianne Koborie lost their oldest child, but “nothing has changed” for them, Mr. Koborie said. “Absolutely nothing.”
“She’s still in our minds every day,” he said recently from their Trumbull Avenue home. “She never leaves.”
Miss Adovasio was the first recipient of the Koborie scholarship, which gives preference to students who pursue a career in the field Becky devoted her time and talent to: music.
Ms. Koborie graduated from Sharon High, where she was a good student involved in music, and moved to New York City after getting a degree in theater arts and music from the University of Cincinnati in 1977. She had just finished a master cabaret class in Manhattan before her death and was choirmaster for the insurance company where she worked.
A marketing major at Clarion University with a music and French minor, Miss Adovasio said she feels honored to be part of Ms. Koborie’s legacy.
While she is saddened by what the Kobories have gone through, Miss Adovasio said she was grateful someone wanted to help her follow her passion. She called the scholarship a “great tribute” to Ms. Koborie.
“I love music so much,” Miss Adovasio said. “And she loved music … (the Kobories) found a way to let her spirit live on.”
“Becky’d like the scholarship,” her father said. “She would be all for it.”
Mr. Koborie said the family hopes recipients “become something in life,” and no matter what they do, they’ll carry Becky’s dreams with them.
Becky was vibrant, outgoing, funny, good hearted and “game for anything,” her parents said. Throughout her life, Ms. Koborie was very involved in the community, giving her time and money to charity and individuals in need.
“She was somebody you’d like to know,” said Mrs. Koborie. “She loved New York. She went to as many plays as she could. Her apartment had stacks and stacks of playbills.”
“She was always into something,” said Mrs. Koborie of her daughter. “She was an overachiever, I think.”
“I don’t think you could find anyone who’d have a bad word to say about Becky,” said classmate Sue McLaughlin of Hermitage. “Becky would walk into a room and the room would light up. She was the eternal optimist.”
Ms. McLaughlin recently retired as guidance counselor from their alma mater, and she said the scholarship was a fitting way to commemorate Becky’s life.
It is just one thing people have done to keep Ms. Koborie’s memory alive. In Buhl Park, where her parents said Becky spent many happy times growing up, there are many trees, a garden, walkway blocks and a bench dedicated to her.
A plaque in a park behind the office of Marsh and McLennan where she worked in Manhattan lists in their own handwriting the 300 employees killed in the attacks that day, and an aunt of one of Ms. Koborie’s neighbors planted a tree in Israel in her honor.
“She’s everywhere,” Mr. Koborie said.
A framed, enlarged print of the last photograph taken of Ms. Koborie hangs in her old bedroom; it was to be the cover of a compact disc of her songs.
Ms. Koborie began taking piano lessons at age 8 and “she loved to sing,” said her mother. Becky’s musical gift influenced her brothers and sisters, too, Mrs. Koborie said.
Her piano still sits in the Koborie living room, with portraits of her and her three siblings, each at 3 years old, hanging above it.
The whole family gathered in Maine last month, and though they don’t talk about her death much, everyone felt the broken link, Mr. Koborie said.
The attacks deeply affected the Koborie family, of course, and Mr. Koborie is quite conscious of how the event reverberated around the world.
He blames the politicians for letting their guard down in the months and years leading up to the attacks. And unfortunately we’ve got to protect ourselves, even if it means giving up some freedoms, he said.
“They never found one piece of her … not one piece,” said Mr. Koborie, adding that some ashes from the World Trade Center sit on the piano. “We hope there’s some part of her in there.”
“I figure it’s not her,” said Mrs. Koborie. “It’s just ashes from New York.”
“She’s only a memory now — that’s how we have to live, hoping she didn’t die in vain,” Mr. Koborie said.
Mr. Koborie said he hoped to spend today in New York City for a memorial service.
“We get up to grieve and we go to sleep with grief.”
