By Steve Peoples
Executive Editor
There were at least four Maine victims in last week’s attacks on America.
One of those victims was James Roux, a 1984 graduate of the University of Maine Law School in Portland.
The 42-year-old was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center last Tuesday.
Though he graduated almost 20 years ago, some professors remember the man described as a “larger than life kind of guy,” by Libra Professor Martin Rogoff.
Law Professor Melvyn Zarr remembers Roux as a “quiet, competent student.”
“He certainly wasn’t at the head, but he was solid,” said Zarr. “My sense was he was a decent young guy who certainly had a longer period of years to look forward to.”
Rogoff was closer with Roux after he left law school.
“He was a very interesting and engaging character,” said Rogoff. He said they spent time together after Roux moved back to the Portland area in recent years to start his own law practice.
“I talked to him a good deal about his ventures in Nepal. He’s climbed in the Himalayas and even on Everest,” said Rogoff. “He was a big, robust kind of guy. He was big in all ways – generous, exuberant and even physically big.”
Roux was a partner in the law firm Roux & Ghimire, a general trial practice and international law firm with offices on Exchange Street and Katmandu, Nepal.
Rogoff was at a reception at Roux’s Portland office about a year ago. That was the last time he saw his former student alive.
Executive Editor Steve Peoples can be contacted at: [email protected]