Butler, Levi

BUTLER

Posted By: Debbie Nash (email)
Date: 3/12/2004 at 19:23:46

Friends remember Levi Butler as intelligent, "full of joy"
By Erik Gable, Ledger assistant news editor March 03, 2004

A memorial service is scheduled for 8 p.m. tonight in the Maharishi School auditorium.

As students, faculty and staff at Maharishi University of Management mourned the death of Levi Butler, the 19-year-old freshman who was stabbed to death Monday night, friends remembered him as a bright young man who has a positive impact on everyone who knew him.

Dan Burks, Butler's first instructor at M.U.M., described the student as "a wonderful person."

"From the first time I laid eyes on him, I liked him and I consider him a very good friend," Burks said. "His whole person was just full of joy."

Burks teaches Science of Creative Intelligence, which is the first course in the university's program.

Tim Hermann, a friend of Butler's from LaQuinta High School in California, said Butler was "a calm, intelligent and entertaining person to be around."

"There are many people who Levi knew and affected," Hermann, now a student at California Polytechnic State University, said in an e-mail interview with The Ledger. "He was always around, having fun and making the most of life."

Hermann said Butler was involved in the debate team and philosophy club at LaQuinta High School.

M.U.M. registrar Diane Sanny said Butler had transferred from College of the Desert in Palm Desert, Calif., where he had spent one year and was on the dean's list.

Butler was in his first year at the university. He had a grade point average of 3.81, Sanny said.

"He was an excellent student," she said.

At the time of his death, Butler was enrolled in a class called Collective Consciousness. M.U.M. operates on the block schedule, meaning students take one course at a time.

Classes were optional today at the university, M.U.M. spokesman Ken Chawkin said. Students had the option of going to class to talk about Monday's events with their teachers.

In addition, Chawkin said, counselors and teachers who aren't teaching a class this block are making themselves available to students and will be speaking with students throughout the week to help them deal with their grief.

A memorial service is planned for 8 p.m. tonight in the Maharishi School auditorium. Butler's parents are expected to be in attendance.

Courtesy of the Fairfield Daily Ledger Inc. 2004