Samuel Law; Former Student President at UCLA
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Samuel Law, one of the first Asians ever elected student body president at a major university, was electrocuted Sunday while trying to remove a whirlpool device from his parents’ swimming pool in Van Nuys. Paramedics were unable to revive him.
Law, 27, was a 20-year-old Chinese-American majoring in sociology and the director of the UCLA Asian Coalition when he won the student presidency in a May, 1981, runoff election.
Law graduated in 1983, the same year he bested 300 other applicants statewide for a Senate Fellowship. He worked a year in the office of state Sen. Newton R. Russell of Glendale and afterward became chairman of the Asian Coalition for the Reelection of Mayor Tom Bradley. He had been attending law school recently, but spent much of his free time working with various minority youth and church groups, friends and family said.
Survivors include his parents, Mary and Dale Law, a sister, Debbie Schwartz and a brother, Edmund Law.
Services are scheduled at 10 a.m. Saturday at Gardena Valley Baptist Church. Burial will follow at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes.
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