Howard Berman: “I am truly heartbroken today to rise to say a final farewell to my friend and former staff member, Joyce Chiang. On…”

“I am truly heartbroken today to rise to say a final farewell to my friend and former staff member, Joyce Chiang. On January 9, Joyce vanished from her neighborhood. On April 1, she was found on the shore of the Potomac River in southern Fairfax County. Word yesterday of positive identification brought an end to the long vigil kept by her friends and family, and brought an end to the hope that we would see her bright smile once again. Joyce was born in Chicago, but she lived in California, and she was a California girl. Bright, beautiful, smart as a whip, she volunteered as an intern in my Los Angeles office when she was still a teenager. In 1990, while a student at Smith College, she spent January in my Washington office as an LBJ intern. At the end of the month, she had to rush back to Smith, because she was Senate Finance Committee Chair of the Smith College Student Government Association, and she had to plan for budget season. In her senior year, Joyce's fellow students elected her to be president of their student body. Last year, as my daughter was deciding where she might want to go to college, she sought Joyce's advice and, as a result, she is today a student at Joyce's alma mater, Smith College at Northhampton, Massachusetts. Joyce graduated from Smith in 1992 and showed up in my office looking for a day job so she could go to law school at night at Georgetown University. I was delighted to give her that job, knowing the benefit was more mine than hers.”