They say that the light that burns brightest burns briefest, and there was always a part of me that feared, perhaps irrationally, that her light would burn so bright that it would flame out long before her time.
In the aftermath of her death, I’ve heard countless stories from her friends, teachers, coworkers, and perfect strangers about things she did for others, things I never would have known about had people not volunteered to share their Alison stories.
A typical example came from her time at WDBJ. It was just before Christmas and Alison, part of the skeleton crew still in the building, picked up the call. A desperate grandmother was on the other end of the line and spoke of a family with a struggling dad, a mom not in the picture, and children who were about to go without presents. All of the Christmas-assistance deadlines had passed and calls like these can sometimes be bogus—and bogus or not, they are generally met with a response of “I wish we could do something, but . . .”
Maybe Alison could tell the call was genuine, or maybe she was just willing to roll the dice, but she took a leap of faith. She made several calls and finally got in touch with an organization willing to help. Three children ended up with presents from Santa they wouldn’t have received otherwise.
There were so many little acts of kindness that only she and the recipients knew about, so many stories she never shared with me. I’m so thankful her coworker Heather Butterworth shared that one.
Throughout her short life, Alison developed relationships and trust. There is no better example than the mutual trust she shared with the court clerks, judges, and law enforcement in Jacksonville, Onslow County, and the state police attached to the area. While they had to share appropriate press releases with all local media, Alison was clearly a favorite. Once while visiting her, she took Barbara and me to meet the previous Onslow County sheriff. He sang her praises and invited us to join him and his wife “for suppuh.” I thought it quite unusual, but it clearly showed that Alison had left an impression on him. You don’t invite someone over for suppuh unless you’re fond of them.
She did once get “scooped” while she was working in New Bern, when she got an early tip from one of her police contacts that they were working on an active investigation. She was asked, however, not to break the story too early—the police wanted the media to keep it quiet until they wrapped up their investigation. The contact said this was because of its “sensitive nature.” Alison was ethical and complied, but when her competition found out, they were not. They broke the story. Afterward, there were some people in her news department that criticized her for not reporting it. I remember her telling me how much that stung, but she never second-guessed her decision. She knew she had done the right thing, and she stood up for her ethics in subsequent staff meetings. Ultimately, prematurely breaking the story backfired on the other station and Alison was hailed by upper management at hers. The respect she already had was multiplied.
The immediate benefit came in the form of getting more news tips. When law enforcement had information to feed the press, they would send out a release to all media outlets at the same time. They often seemed to make a mistake, though, and Alison would get the releases an hour or two before anyone else. Funny how that happened.
All of this leads to my favorite story about Alison’s news career. She was tipped off that there was going to be a major meth lab bust in the county. State as well as local police were involved, and the lead investigator assured Alison that they would be working long through the night at the crime scene. She requested the only live truck the station had for the entire area so she could lead the ten o’clock news with a live report. Before long, Alison and her crew were on the scene, raring to go.
At 9:45 p.m., the lead investigator called out to his team: “OK guys, that’s it. Let’s wrap it up.”
Alison panicked. Her story was tanking before her eyes. She went to the lead investigator and asked if they could please just stick around for a few more minutes for her live shot.
A lot of law enforcement officers would have shaken their heads no, however politely. The lead investigator didn’t.
“Sure, Alison, we’ve got you covered,” he said. He then instructed his men to fire up the flashing light bars on all the squad cars. He positioned his team in the background of the shot and armed them with clipboards, which they furiously scribbled on as the cameras rolled. It was a dramatic scene and made a great backdrop for Alison’s report. She nailed it.
Some readers will conclude, “Aha! Fake news!” But it wasn’t. Law enforcement busted a meth lab. The outcome was the same either way. It was a benign recreation, the kind of harmless small-town courtesy that could have happened in Mayberry, North Carolina, as easily as Jacksonville. Would officers in a major metropolitan market have done this for Alison? Given the trust she’d garnered, I’d like to think so. Those officers did it for her because she was held in high esteem and they knew her ethics to be beyond reproach.
What was it like being Alison’s dad? It was getting up each day with a heart bursting with pride. When I was running for Henry County’s Board of Supervisors just before she was killed, I only halfway joked that my campaign slogan was “I’m Alison’s dad.” It’s how I introduce myself still.
I worshipped my little Scooter. She will always be the best part of my life. I think she knew it, too.
2
The Day
I want to tell you what I was doing the day before the worst day of my life.
It was a good day, a great day even. Back when I served on the Henry County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors (I won by a single vote, so don’t let anyone tell you voting doesn’t matter), I worked to get weekend power generation at Philpott Dam, to allow kayakers to enjoy the Smith River on weekends.
I didn’t achieve that goal during my time on the board, but seven years later, during the summer of 2015, all of the gears I’d carefully put into place finally meshed. Philpott Dam, an unassuming hydroelectric dam built along the Smith River during the New Deal era, would now have weekend generation.
I’m a paddler. One of my greatest joys, even now, is to gather together some friends and family, drop a few kayaks in a river, and enjoy nature’s splendor. It’s peaceful, relaxing, and when the speed picks up on that silvery ribbon of water and you’re working to point the kayak’s nose in the right direction, operating off of your instincts and your experience, it’s exciting, too.
It’s also great for tourism, which was my main goal. Henry County is a beautiful place, ripe for tourism, and paddlers are willing to travel miles and miles to find a good river. A good river is a fast river with just enough depth to keep a kayak from scraping the bottom, and until recently, the Smith was only a good river on weekdays, since that was when Philpott Dam was generating power and pumping a few million gallons of Philpott Lake through its twin turbines. I figured that if we could get at least one day of generation on weekends, it would be a boon to our river tourism industry.
On August 25, 2015, my labors finally bore fruit and weekend generation at Philpott Dam was made official. I drove out to the dam, parked in the narrow lot along the river, and then got out to greet a few folks. I saw Craig “Rocky” Rockwell, the project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers; he’s a tall, good-natured older gentleman who always has a few sardonic quips at the ready should the need arise. We congratulated each other. He would end up retiring in a little more than a year, and I think he was glad to see at least one more positive mark on his record before he took his leave.
I saw Tola Adamson, a reporter from Channel 13, there to cover the big announcement. We said hello; she knew me because she knew Alison, a thread that continues to weave its way through my life.
I saw others, too, county officials, local politicians, American Electric Power employees, various local dignitaries of all stripes. It was a day of celebration, a day of speechifying, a day for people to line up at a podium and rattle off lists of all the folks who deserved a pat on the back for the