More Stories of the Paper

During the first few months I was at the News Messenger our Editor moved on to another paper. Stacey began interviewing to fill the position; I was honored and a bit surprised when she actually asked my opinion on a couple of the potential candidates. We both agreed on one of the last interviewees, his name was Troy. Troy was awesome and a great addition to the office, he was also a bit of a risk taker at times. I don't think it was because he was actually seeking to take risks; sometimes he just reacted and did what needed to be done. 

One morning as we were busy working, and not too long after the Oklahoma City Bombing we heard an explosion just outside of our office. We all ran to the door to see what happened. There was a car parked in front of the bank next to us and it was on fire. There was a woman in the car trying to get out. Troy ran out of our office and helped the woman get out. Once she was out of the car, which was still in gear, the flaming car began to roll across the street headed for the busy Barber Shop. Troy, jumped into the car, threw it in park and jumped out stopping the car in the middle of the street before it could reach the barber shop. The Fire Department showed up at that moment and took over, but not without first telling Troy not to ever do anything like that again! 

Richard, our Outside Sales Rep and I were standing at the door, Troy walked in and the first words out of his mouth were, "DO NOT tell my wife about this!" They were expecting their first child and I am pretty sure that although her husband did a very heroic thing, would not have been pleased about the chance he took! 

Even though Lincoln was a pretty small town we had our share of excitement, sometimes good and a lot of times not so good. 

Our office was one of several along Main Street; the buildings were rustic brick with some great old architecture. Our section of buildings contained the local café, and a bank. Across the street were various businesses with a beautiful courtyard in between the section of buildings. One block down on the other side of the street was another bank; just around the corner across the street was our Police Department.

Of course being the only local paper we had a police scanner in our office. One afternoon we heard a call go out about the bank down the block being robbed! Troy went running out of the office, without his camera and headed to the bank. There was a man inside the bank holding hostages by shotgun. Richard and I stood at the door and watched him run across the street headed for the bank. At the same time we both noticed he had forgotten his camera. I told Richard, you should take him his camera to which he replied, “I don’t think so, you take it to him.” Before we finished the conversation, Troy came running back into the office to grab his camera. We could hear on the scanner the police had the building surrounded and were trying to talk the man out without hurting anyone.

I asked Troy if he thought it was safe for him to be going back over there. This was going to be another, “don’t tell my wife about this!”

A couple minutes later Richard standing at the window says, “Hey Cindy isn’t that your son running this way?” I looked out and her came my youngest son Chris running through the courtyard heading for the office. He was white as a sheet! He was about 10 years old at the time.

He ran into the office and I asked him, “What is wrong?” He kept saying, “Mom we didn’t know he was really going to do it, I’m sorry mom we should have gone to the police. “We didn’t think he was really going to do it!” I asked him what on earth he was talking about.

He proceeded to tell me that he and a couple of his friends were walking down the street, this guy who was holding the hostages happened to be related to one of the kids Chris was with. He was drunk and told the boys he was going to rob the bank and showed them the shotgun. He had also told him he didn’t care if he got out alive.

Apparently this guy had just recently gotten out of jail, found out he had cancer and his life had not been going too good. My first thought was for the people in the bank. If this guy didn’t care anything could happen.

Chris was terrified and thought he was going to be in trouble because they didn’t tell anyone what this guy was going to do. It wasn’t long between the time he showed them the gun and then walked into the bank.

It took them close to an hour to talk this guy out, and thank God he gave up and no one was hurt. The police chief told Troy they were gonna have to give him his own bullet proof vest if he didn’t stop doing stuff like this!

I told Troy when he came back into the office what Chris had told me, he talked to one of the officers and they asked Chris if he would identify the man. I thought they would have him identify him from a distance, you know like they show in the movies! However to my complete dismay the officer told Chris to come over to the car they had the guy cuffed and sitting in. He opened the door, so the guy could see Chris and asked Chris if this was the guy who told him he was going to rob the bank.

I couldn’t hear what exactly the guy was saying to Chris, all I could think was are you serious??? You put a little boy in front of a man who just held people at gun point and you want him to indentify him for you? The officer told the man to keep his mouth shut and stop talking to Chris; a little late considering Chris was already scared to death.  Chris of course had to say yes it was him.

For the next few weeks Chris was worried because apparently a couple of people had made some threats against him a few days later as he was walking home. I told the police chief and he said I shouldn’t be too concerned because Chris wouldn’t be called to testify or anything because the guy plead guilty ...alrighty then easy for you to say it’s not your child that is terrified right now!

Such is life in a small town I guess.