2 Fulbright Scholarships to Honor Memory of Amy Biehl

When Peter Biehl first heard that two Fulbright scholarships would be awarded annually in memory of his daughter, Amy, the first thing that came to his mind was how pleased she would have been.

A Stanford graduate from Newport Beach, the young woman was killed in South Africa in 1993.

“There are few things that have happened to us since Amy’s death that are more touching than this,” Peter Biehl said Thursday from his home near Palm Springs.

“My wife, Linda, and I are especially touched because we remember how badly Amy wanted a Fulbright, how hard she worked, and how thrilled she was when she got it.”

One Fulbright scholarship will be given to a South African graduate student to study in the United States; the other will be awarded to an American to study in South Africa.

“This recognition of Amy is wonderful,” Biehl said. “We hope to meet each of the students, get to know them, and to see what we can do to help them. I think Amy would have liked that.”

The 26-year-old Biehl was killed in South Africa while helping with voter registration for the nation’s first all-race election in 1994 that ended apartheid.

Biehl died in the Guguletu black township outside Cape Town when a crowd of blacks stoned her car, then beat and stabbed her because she was white. The killing drew international attention to South Africa’s racial violence. Four men are serving 18-year prison sentences for her murder.