Catching Up Before Parchman
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David Howell shares (mostly) unembellished stories from 23 years of covering the news in Yalobusha County with third-graders at Davidson Elementary School, including tales of bank robberies, murders, plane crashes and plenty of other happenings that have kept a small-town newspaper reporter busy.
DAVE’S WORLD
By David Howell
I have some catching up to do this week, with a few lingering stories I wanted to get to. First, a little update on Dr. Lee Richardson, the emergency room doctor who was critically injured in the plane crash at the Water Valley airport on Sept. 19.
I have been following social media, where his wife and members of his church have been posting updates and it seems Dr. Richardson is improving a little every day.
The fact that he is still with us is a miracle.
I talked to several first responders who were on the scene, and they believe he is a strong fighter to have survived the crash, the difficult extrication and the helicopter flight to Memphis. I believe he received six units of blood before he made it to the hospital.
Fire Chief Mark McGavock is quick to point out that he is no aviation crash expert, but what he saw at the scene left little doubt that Richardson survived a tremendous impact. His family, patients and friends continue to pray for his recovery, and I know a lot of folks around here who had never heard Dr. Richardson’s name before Sept. 19 are praying right along with them.
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I visited with the third-grade classes at Davidson Elementary on Sept. 17 to share a little about my career.
I like to start my spiel with a couple of questions.
What is the oldest business in Yalobusha County?
The Herald, of course, dating back to 1888.
Then I ask how many reporters there are in Water Valley and Yalobusha County who work full time gathering the news.
One.
And no doubt, I struggle to keep up.
I shared some of the fun stories, tragic stories and meaningful stories I have covered through the years. I may have even changed the career trajectory of a few students.
If we suddenly have a crop of newspaper reporters about 15 years from now, I’ll take the credit. I included a picture of the group as promised!
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I ran into Justin Smith on Saturday and apologized for renaming him Justin Williams in last week’s edition.
Justin is hard at work as the city’s new animal control officer, learning how to catch some of the dogs that have become pretty evasive after spending so much time roaming around town.
I’m good for a renaming every once in a while. If it starts happening too often, somebody might need to start looking for an old folks home for me.
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Last month, David Jones stopped by the office to tell me the harrowing story of being awakened by an intruder who stumbled into his bedroom, aimed for the bed and wound up on the floor.
David lives on County Road 378, just outside Water Valley in Lafayette County. Some of you may know him from Larson’s Cash Saver where he works.
I promised David I would share his story. I didn’t realize at the time that he lived in Lafayette County, and when I checked with the Yalobusha County Sheriff’s Department and found no information about the incident, I didn’t follow up like I should have.
David later shared the booking information with me. Andrew T. Goodwin, 28, was arrested Sept. 9 and charged with burglary — breaking and entering an inhabited dwelling house.
According to David, his mother-in-law was still awake watching television when the stranger entered the house. He glanced at her and continued down the hallway toward David’s bedroom.
David was sound asleep.
He woke up with a stranger trying to get into his bed.
For a moment, still half asleep, David was trying to figure out just what in the world was going on. Then he noticed something that made the situation even stranger: The man was wearing an ankle monitor and underwear.
The intruder mumbled something, fell to the floor beside the bed and apparently passed out.
David got dressed, found his pistol and went to check on his mother-in-law, who was already on the phone with law enforcement.
Then came the wait.
As David told the story, you could tell it is a lot funnier to him now than it was while he stood there armed, watching a stranger who was passed out on his bedroom floor while waiting for deputies to arrive.
When deputies entered the house, David put his pistol down and let them take over. He later learned that the man apparently claimed he had been to the house before and had once dated a woman who lived there.
David has lived there for six years and had never seen him before.
The stranger had also driven well into David’s backyard before entering the house. David said the vehicle came within a few feet of hitting a guy wire and wasn’t far from dropping off an embankment.
Whatever brought him there, David figures the man was so impaired or confused that he simply had no idea where he was.
That makes the story a little funny now.
But waking up to a strange man falling on you in your own bedroom. Yikes!
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I’ll close with this.
I didn’t know six months ago, when I committed to serving on a Kairos Prison Ministry team headed to Parchman Oct. 1-4, that the first weekend in October would turn out to be one of the busiest weekends we’ve had in a while.
The Water Valley High School homecoming game is Friday night, and the Art Crawl is Saturday night.
Thankfully, Edee Henderson is doing a great job on the football field, and she will be covering homecoming.
As for the Art Crawl, I’m going to have to depend on all of you.
If you’re crawling Saturday night, send me a few pictures so I can share them!
