Song honoring slain student will benefit orphans she wanted to help

For four semesters Gayle Dubowski studied the intricacies of the Russian language.

Even her professor at Northern Illinois University didn't know why the 20-year-old Carol Stream woman was learning the complex sentence structures and tongue-tying words.

But her father knew.

"We had been interested in going as a family to the Ukraine to do work with a church over there and she was particularly interested in helping out at the orphanages in Kiev and Moscow," Joe Dobowski said. "She was learning Russian so she could speak to the children."

Gayle never got to make that trip.

More Coverage Video Gayle's Song

She and four classmates were shot and killed by a gunman who burst into a lecture hall on the DeKalb campus Feb. 14.

Three of her cousins aren't letting Gayle's dream of helping the orphans die with her.

They hope a song they wrote in honor of Gayle will soon be available on a variety of Web sites. Money generated by downloads of the song will help fund volunteer programs at the orphanages that intrigued Gayle.

"It's a tragic story, but it sounds like Gayle was an incredible kid," said David Blenko, a spokesman for HOPE Worldwide, the beneficiary of the song's profits. "It's encouraging to hear her cousins' plans."

It also combines Gayle's other passions. She was regarded by her family and friends as an extremely gifted singer and pianist.

But that wasn't all.

"She always wanted to make a difference in the world," Gayle's mother, Laurel, said. "And by her death and what people will remember of her, she is going to make a big impact, and that is amazing."

'Hey Love'

Struggling with the emotions he felt in the wake of his cousin's untimely death, George Balogi sat down with his guitar.

The music came to him quickly; in a half hour, "I had the whole song written for guitar," he said.

Balogi talked to his sister, Alisha, about writing lyrics to a song that honored Gayle's memory and performing it at a private funeral service.

"I'm not a lyricist, but I knew they were," he said.

Alisha passed the tune along to their cousin, Christian Ramaker, in an e-mail with the subject heading: "Hey Love." No particular reason for that, Alisha said, but it proved serendipitous.

"They were words that just got trapped in my head as I was writing lyrics, and I thought it would be a great hook line in the chorus," Ramaker said.

After about an hour, Ramaker had finished the lyrics that became "Hey Love, (Gayle's Song)."

"I just prayed that God would put the right words in my mouth," he said.

When he arrived in town for Gayle's memorial services two days later, Ramaker and the Balogis went to Chicago's Gravity Studios where George works as an engineer to put the whole song together as a surprise for Gayle's parents.

"It was very, very special," Laurel Dubowski said. "It encouraged my heart."

The cousins called the experience cathartic and therapeutic.

"If it wasn't for that song, I don't know what state I'd be in now," Alisha said. "The one thing that ties this family together is music, and it's been so healing."

To Russia, with love

The creative end of the process has gone smoothly. Getting the song online for people to buy is a challenge.

Major online music stores like iTunes, Rhapsody and Napster don't take just anything that comes along.

"For someone who's never done something like this before, it's extremely hard," Alisha Balogi said.

Enter Hinsdale native Derek Sivers' CDBaby.com. The Oregon-based online music store will be the original distributor of "Hey Love (Gayle's Song)."

"We do these a lot," Sivers said. "After Sept. 11 we got no less than 100 albums with the proceeds going to various charities, so much so that we created an entire section on the site for them."

Gayle's song will cost $1 to download from CDBaby and should be available this week. Sivers' company takes nine cents from each download to cover administrative costs. His company will eventually distribute the song to the other major Web-based music stores. The profits will all be sent directly to HOPE Worldwide in Pennsylvania.

The money will be funneled to the orphanages Gayle had hoped to work at.

"This isn't simply operations for orphanages," HOPE's Blenko said. "We provide life-skill programs for the children in these orphanages."

Gayle's father said their family became aware of the cause through their church, Chicago Church of Christ.

"Many orphanages in the former Soviet Union have a reputation as warehousing these children until they're 18 and then dumping them onto the streets with little to no education," Joe Dubowski said. "HOPE orphanages have social work programs and education programs. Gayle really wanted to go abroad and do social work and help out."

The cousins have no expectation on fundraising.

"This song wasn't written for charity, it was written for our cousin Gayle," Alisha Balogi said. "We don't have any idea what will happen now. We just hope."

Gayle's song

Here are some Web sites affiliated with "Hey Love."

www.cdbaby.com/cd/gaylessong: This site will go live this week where visitors can buy the song for $1 per download.

www.myspace.com/gayledubowskimemorial: This site features a version of the song, news about other sites selling downloads of the song and updates on charity funds generated by the sales.

www.hopeww.org: Home page for HOPE Worldwide, the charity that runs operational and educational programs at the Russian and Ukrainian orphanages where Gayle had hoped to work. Visitors can make donations in her name directly through the site.