A Howard College professor and former Miss Kansas contestant recognized for her vivid smile and zest for all times was among the many victims in Wednesday’s midair collision between an Military helicopter and an American Airways airplane close to Reagan Nationwide Airport.
Kiah Duggins, 30, was named as a sufferer within the catastrophe by Howard College President Ben Vinson III, who referred to as for privateness and respect for her household, college students, and colleagues throughout this troublesome time.
In a press release, the college stated Duggins was set to start a brand new chapter as a professor at Howard College College of Regulation this fall.
Kiah Duggins was recognized for her vivid smile and zest for all times. (Howard College)
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“As a civil rights lawyer, she devoted her profession to preventing in opposition to unconstitutional policing and unjust cash bail practices in Tennessee, Texas and Washington, D.C.,” the assertion reads. “Plans to honor her legacy can be shared in coming days.”
Duggins was additionally a civil rights lawyer with the non-profit Civil Rights Corps, primarily based in Washington D.C.
The group’s web site says she labored with the ACLU of Northern California and with Neufeld, Scheck and Brustin LLP to “problem police misconduct and different harms of the prison authorized system” earlier than coming to the Civil Rights Corps. She studied the jail industrial advanced abolition and lawyering motion as a Regulation For Black Lives fellow, a Black liberation group.
She earned her regulation diploma from Harvard Regulation College, the place she served because the president of the Harvard Authorized Support Bureau. Earlier than that, she earned a bachelor’s diploma from Wichita State College and accomplished a Fulbright grant in Taiwan, in keeping with the Civil Rights Corps.
Emergency response items reply to the crash website of an American Airways airplane and Black Hawk helicopter on the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia on Thursday. Duggins was certainly one of 67 folks to lose their lives within the catastrophe. (Leigh Inexperienced for Fox Information Digital)
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Larry Robust, who was Duggins’ native pageant director when she competed for Miss Kansas and Miss Butler County, instructed KBTX that Duggins had “such a vivid future forward.”
In a Fb put up, he described her as “Miss Butler County 2014, 2015.”
“Kiah was a high 10 finalist in 2014 and 2015 on the Miss Kansas Pageant. She was getting ready to be a regulation professor at Howard College within the fall. Hold her household in your ideas and prayers throughout this troublesome time.”
Annie Montgomery, minister of Tabernacle Bible Church in Wichita, instructed KMUW that she is going to bear in mind Duggins for her vivid smile and her zest for all times.
“Kiah was probably the most stunning younger girl inside and outside,” Montgomery stated. “She was adventurous. She made buddies so simply. She had the sort of persona that you simply simply couldn’t resist.”
A part of the wreckage is seen as rescue boats search the waters of the Potomac River after a airplane on strategy to Reagan Nationwide Airport collided with a helicopter and crashed into the river close to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 30, 2025. Duggins was certainly one of 67 folks to lose their lives within the catastrophe. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
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Lacey Cruse, a former Sedgwick County commissioner, described Duggins as “a courageous and delightful soul, a light-weight within the struggle for civil rights.”
“Her loss is heartbreaking, not just for her household and buddies however for everybody who believes in justice and equality,” she wrote on Fb. “Might her work, her message, and her spirit proceed to encourage and create change. Gone too quickly however by no means forgotten.”
Duggins was certainly one of 67 folks to lose their lives in the catastrophe. The reason for the collision is being investigated.
