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layton Baker was sitting at home last fall in a small suburb outside of Boston, on medical leave from Syracuse University, when he applied to be a Remembrance Scholar.

He was battling a parasitic infection picked up in South America, causing symptoms that forced him to return to Milton, Massachusetts, the town where he grew up playing in the streets and where he attended Milton High School.

But as he filled out his application, Clayton was unaware of the connection he had to one of the 35 SU students who died in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. Cynthia “Cindy” Smith also grew up playing in the streets of Milton, and she too attended Milton High School.

About three weeks ago, each scholar was assigned to one of the 35 students who died, leading Clayton to realize he had more in common with Cindy than he initially realized. Now he is representing Cindy as a Remembrance Scholar.

“It is surreal. This is really huge to have this personal connection that I didn’t know existed, especially to something that is such a special recognition to receive,” Clayton said. “I will be able to hold on to that for the rest of my life — not only as a scholar, but after I graduate too.”

Clayton is a senior international relations and information management and technology double major with a special interest in cybersecurity. This semester, he’s studying in Washington, D.C., and he has an internship at IDS International, an independent national security agency. Being away from SU has made his experience as a Remembrance Scholar an atypical one.

For Clayton, the honor of being a Remembrance Scholar has grown in meaning the more immersed he has become in the program, he said. His connection with Cindy is one that he’s still in the process of discovering and learning more about.

While at SU, Cindy’s major was retail management — she wanted to study in Europe so she could learn more about European designs and fashions, according to the SU archives. She would spend hours in museums throughout Europe.

For her 21st birthday, Cindy’s family deposited money into her account so she could “buy something fun in Paris,” according to the SU archives. She loved to shop, considering it personal market research, according to the archives.

Cindy also had a love for art — so much that her parents donated money to the Milton High School art department on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack. At the time, it was the biggest scholarship the school had, not counting the additional donation to updating the facilities.

Art was important to Clayton in high school, too, and he received awards for his artwork. He was left near speechless when he learned of the extent of the connection between him and Cindy.

Close connections such as these are not uncommon, said Vanessa St. Oegger-Menn, Pan Am Flight 103 archivist and Remembrance Scholar adviser. Usually, though, scholars may be connected to their student because they were family members or family friends.

“The scholars who realize they were from the same hometown, or they went to the same summer camp — it’s normally something they find out during the process and I think it can set you back on your heels a little bit,” St. Oegger-Menn said.

Studying in D.C. has left Clayton unable to conduct extensive archival research, and Cindy is among the students who haven’t had a collection donated to the archives on their behalf. Clayton’s experience, however, has been unaffected by studying away from SU, he said.

“I feel like it’s even more powerful, being a Remembrance Scholar here,” Clayton said. “Not only is there a huge Syracuse alumni presence here in D.C., there’s a lot of connections.”

Clayton plans on paying a visit to the Pan Am Flight 103 memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, where a ceremony will be held Dec. 21 to honor the victims.

This year has been the first time St. Oegger-Menn has worked with a scholar based outside of Syracuse, though it is not the first time it has happened. She said Clayton is driven and even applied to be the Remembrance convocation speaker via Skype.

“It could have been really easy to lose track of a Remembrance Scholar that wasn’t here, but Clayton has been doing a terrific job of staying involved in committee work for Remembrance,” she said. “I am very impressed by that.”

Scholars studying away from SU will often be put in charge of organizing Remembrance events at the SU center they are visiting. They also usually return to SU for the latter days of Remembrance Week to attend the convocation and the Rose Laying Ceremony.

SU will play host to many of the victims’ families for the ceremony on Friday. Additionally, many family members of the scholars will visit for the Remembrance Week events.

Donna Baker, Clayton’s mother, will make the trip to SU this week along with his grandmother, uncle and aunt.

His mother described Clayton as determined. When he was a young boy, he wanted to play piano so he taught himself by ear, playing over the TV that his two brothers — Clayton is a triplet — were watching in the background.

When a Turkish boy moved to the area, Clayton wanted to get to know him. So his mother had to buy him a dictionary because Clayton wanted to communicate with him. She said Clayton always embraced diversity, something that spurred him to study abroad and later apply to be a Remembrance Scholar.

“Each time he would leave, getting on a plane knowing the possibilities that can happen, realizing what happened to those 35 students (on the Pan Am 103 flight),” his mother said.

Two days before Cindy was due to return home on that flight, she spoke to her family. A book in the archives has a quote from her father: “She was so excited about coming home. She had everything going for her — personality, friends. She just loved life.”

Cindy’s family has not donated a collection to the archives, but her mother sent a piece of her daughter’s favorite nightgown to be included in the Remembrance quilt hanging in Hendricks Chapel. Her mother has also chosen to remember her in a different way.

Each year around Christmas time, the small village of Dennis in Cape Cod, Massachusetts puts together a wooden nativity scene. An angel by the name of Cynthia is the centerpiece, gazing down at the scene below.

The village’s original nativity scene had been lost to a fire in the early 1980s, according to a 2013 Cape Cod Times article. A fundraising campaign was started to fund the purchase of a new angel, but Joan Smith, Cynthia’s mother, bought one in memory of her daughter who loved the holidays. Joan still visits the nativity scene every year, according to the article.

Clayton said there’s a lot more he doesn’t know about Cindy and that there are likely many more connections for him to discover. He is still trying to reach Cindy’s family through updated contact information, and he has reached out to his high school to see if they have any records from when she was a student.

He said the similarities between the two of them makes representing Cindy even more powerful for him.

“I know some people don’t have this personal connection,” Clayton said. “I never really thought I had any connections and then all of a sudden, wow, this is really a close connection.”