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Funeral Tomorrow for Algerian Hostage Standoff Victim

cia.gov

A visitation will be held tomorrow in Katy for Frederick Buttaccio, one of two Texans killed in the recent hostage standoff at a natural gas complex in Algeria.

The University of Texas at Austin has one of the largest petroleum engineering programs in the country, and the hostage crisis is on the minds of some of those students, who may one day find themselves working in unstable parts of the world.

“You never expect such thing to happen and such incidents are not the norm,” said Emad Alabbad, a first year master’s student. “My personal thoughts are, I’m not going to give up my lifestyle because of terrorists or the conditions they impose on us.”

A funeral date has not been set for the second Texan killed in the hostage standoff, Victor Lovelady of Nederland.

Nathan Bernier is the transportation reporter at KUT. He covers the big projects that are reshaping how we get around Austin, like the I-35 overhaul, the airport's rapid growth and the multibillion dollar transit expansion Project Connect. He also focuses on the daily changes that affect how we walk, bike and drive around the city. Got a tip? Email him at nbernier@kut.org. Follow him on Twitter @KUTnathan.
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