American Ambassador Killed in Libya Has Davis Ties

U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who was killed in Libya Tuesday night, lived in Davis and went to Piedmont High School in the Bay Area before graduating from UC Berkeley, according to various news reports.

Stevens was among four Americans killed in Benghazi, Libya when Muslim protestors attacked the U.S. consulate.

The U.S. Ambassador lived in Davis during the late 1960s and 70s, and attended Pioneer Elementary School and Emerson Junior High School, according to Fox40.

Stevens was a childhood friend of Davis gallery owner John Natsoulas and grew up in Davis according to CBS13.

He was also a 1978 graduate of Piedmont High School, according to PiedmontPatch, and graduated from UC Berkeley in 1982.

"He is remembered at Piedmont High as a former editor of the award-winning Piedmont High School newspaper, The Highlander," Piedmont High School Principal Richard Kitchens told Piedmont Patch.

"He was an outstanding student, active in the PHS Model U.N. club, as well as active in the A.F.S. club. He was also active in all the musical productions at PHS and was featured in the quartet in 1978's The Music Man.

A quote from Stevens that accompanies his 1978 yearbook photo reads, "What a bore it is, waking up in the morning always the same person. I wish I were unflinching and emphatic and had big eyebrows and a Message for the Age."

"He was doing what he loved, and he stayed in it," said David Levine, a professor of law at Hastings who taught Stevens, remembered him from his civil procedure class. "He could have easily made more money elsewhere, but everything he did was for the United States."

Levine said Stevens' actions on Tuesday night were extremely heroic.

"He was devoted to the work he did, and always went above and beyond," Levine said. "He took risks; when he had a choice between something more dangerous or less dangerous, look what he did."

A U.S. Foreign Service information management officer, Sean Smith, and two other Americans whose names were not released were also killed in the attack.

Despite Tuesday's attack, Clinton today insisted the relationship between Libya and the United States is still strong.

The attack occurred the same day as a protest at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Clinton said. In light of the two events, Obama has directed his administration to increase security at all United States diplomatic posts throughout the world.

Stevens joined the Foreign Service in 1991 after working as an international trade lawyer in Washington, D.C, according to his official U.S. State Department biography.

Stevens, who arrived in Tripoli last May as the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, served twice before in Libya as a special representative to the Libyan Transitional National Council in 2011 and deputy chief of mission from 2007 to 2009, the biography states.

He also served in Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo and Riyadh, according to the biography.

Bay City News Service contributed to this article.