Friends remembered one thing above all about Dunni Bakare: her smile.

“Dunni’s smile could break any ice,” said Tosin Oyedele, a fellow Nigerian student and one of Dunni’s best friends. “She would break you with that smile.”

Dunni, sophomore biology major from Lagos, Nigeria, and four other Nigerian students died in a car accident near Weatherford March 31, 2002, when their car careened off a bridge and landed on its roof in a creek bed.

Many students knew and loved Dunni. She was planning on participating as a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding and had reached the finals of a beauty contest, the Optimist reported.

And many remember the death of Dunni and four of her friends because the accident occurred less than two years ago.

But 10 years from now, who will discuss Dunni’s smile? Who will even remember she attended the university, walked its campus or worked in Brown Library?

Nearly 100 students have died before the university could reward them with a diploma. Every day that these students go unrecognized constitutes a failure on the part of the university to recognize their achievements, their hopes or their effect here.

With planning for ACU’s 100th birthday well underway, we urge the Centennial Commission to plan a memorial for students who died while attending the university.

Students such as Austin Parrish, who dreamed of being a pilot and died fulfilling those dreams when his plane crashed during World War II.

Students such as John Sasport, a letterman in track who died in a 1965 car accident on his 21st birthday.

And students such as Kelly Kent, a 21-year-old Wildcat running back who dreamed of becoming an accountant but died of a heart attack in 1979.

These students-more than 40 of whom gave their lives in war-deserve a better homage than the deafening silence the university thus far has paid.

In the past two years, seven students died. In each case, one-time Chapel services memorialized those killed-five in 2002, two in 2003.

Yet future generations will never know these students’ importance to the university-indeed, the importance each student possesses on this campus. A memorial would constitute a lasting testimony to the power of each student, living or dead.

The university should waste no more time. Already, campus life has moved past the fallen, leaving their memories and their dreams behind.

World War II casualties R.B. Kendrick and Robert King, 1951 car crash victim Betty Hancock and an unnamed, 1960s suicide victim in Edwards Hall all remain faceless in the university’s historical record.

As recent history has shown us, the loss of just one student tears at the university’s community, yet the campus has forgotten those students and the dreams they never fulfilled. The campus needs an appropriate, physical reminder that all students provide important pieces to the university fabric, and that when one student dies, the community suffers.

The university should not let another student die unremembered; the Centennial Commission possesses the power to make sure that does not happen.