In memoriam: Samuel Reed

Sam Reed spent his summer working for his dad’s painting business. On early mornings, when… Sam Reed spent his summer working for his dad’s painting business. On early mornings, when everyone was ready to leave for a day’s work, it was never a surprise to find Sam missing from the group.

Chances were that Sam was upstairs brushing his teeth.

“He had the best dental hygiene of anyone I knew,” his dad, Kurt Reed, said. “He had a beautiful smile and an infectious laugh.”

Sam, a 19-year-old Pitt anthropology major, died Saturday Sept. 1 while crossing the Parkway East on foot. He was hit by Judah David Simon, of Pittsburgh, at 2:30 a.m. near the Edgewood-Swissvale exit. Simon, who fled the scene, later turned himself over to the Penn Hills police.

Reed found that working together proved to be a chance for father and son to really get to know each other.

“He was always his mom’s boy through the years, and I began to see that he liked the things I like,” Reed said.

They shared the same taste in music – reggae and Thievery Corporation – an interest in politics and a love for bike riding.

“Even our voices sound the same,” Reed said. “Sam looked a lot like me except he had about four inches on me.”

When Sam was 3 years old, he decided that the training wheels on his bike had to go. Reed remembers complying with his son’s adventuresome wish and watching him “just take off” down the driveway.

As the years passed, Sam kept his interest in biking. During high school, Reed bought his son a full suspension mountain bike and the two would race.

“I could keep up with him, but he’d always make fun of me for riding my road bike,” Reed said. “But next thing you know, he thought it was really awesome, and I ended up buying him one.”

It was this energy that Sam’s father remembers being prevalent in his son throughout his life.

“As a little kid, he was fun to be around because he was a live wire,” Reed said. “He would bounce around, and he was cute as a button.”

As Sam grew up, he would spend time with his father’s friends talking about music and movies – two things he was very passionate about. Sam was interested in all genres of movies and knew more than most about independent films and art, according to his father.

“Sam had a passion for history and art, and a lot of his interests fit well into the framework of his anthropology major,” Reed said.

As a testament to Sam’s love for music, his family planned on playing his iTunes selection after his memorial, which was held Saturday. And two musician friends of Reed’s played Bob Marley’s “The Redemption Song” and Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” as an introduction to the service.

Tyler Custer, Pitt sophomore, remembers becoming friends with Sam in the spring of 2007 because of their similar taste in music.

“He was really into music, especially Indie dance music, which I was also into,” Custer said. “All we talked about was music.”

Custer remembers Sam as an aspiring DJ – he had recently bought a turntable and enjoyed making mixes to his favorite songs.

Sam was also “religious about comedy,” his father said. He watched the Colbert Report, the Daily Show and the Simpsons whenever possible.

“That was probably the best part of Sam – his sense of humor. We had a very similar sense of humor,” Reed said. “I’ll miss that. He was my best audience.”