Riley Howell, the heroic 21 year-old student who lost his life protecting his classmates by tackling the gunman who opened fire at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte on April 30, 2019, has been immortalized in Star Wars canon by Lucasfilm.
In the newly published book Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – The Visual Dictionary, a character inspired by Riley Howell is cited as the Jedi Master who assembled the sacred texts featured in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
In the description of the texts known as the Aionomica, it reads, “Jedi Master and historian Ri-Lee Howell collected many of the earliest accounts of explorations and codifications of the Force in the Aionomica: a two-volume combination of codex, correspondence, and scrapbook. Though much of its contents would later be stored in holocrons (which have since been lost), the physical books have passages written in the hands of the original sages, carefully preserved by Howell.”
Source: IGN.com Star Wars Honors Hero Who Tackled UNC Gunman By Making Him a Jedi Master