Steven Butler

From Washington Talk: Briefing; A Long, Sad Year

By PHILIP SHABECOFF & DAVID BINDER
Published: January 2, 1989

The death of Steven Butler aboard Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland on Dec. 21 brought to six the number of Peace Corps volunteers who died in 1988. ”It has not been a good year,” said a spokesman for the corps.

Mr. Butler, 36 years old, was heading home on emergency family leave from Tunisia, where he had been working since last summer as a beekeeper. His fellow volunteers in Tunisia were gathered in the coastal town of Sousse for advanced Arabic language training when they learned of his death on Christmas Eve. They held a candlelight vigil for him on the beach.

A resident of Denver, Mr. Butler had traveled widely before volunteering for the Peace Corps, telling recruiters he had observed the corps’s work in various countries and ”seen firsthand the positive results accomplished by its presence.”