Living My Storytelling Dream

While looking at the clouds through the window on my flight from San Antonio, my thoughts weren't where they normally are on the way to an assignment. I usually spend this time preparing for interviews or mulling over research.

This flight was different because this assignment was special. This was the first assignment for my dream job. I was reflecting on my first flight to San Antonio almost two decades ago for basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. I've always enjoyed a good story. I've also love to tell stories, whether they are to readers of a daily newspaper in Alabama or to the first grade children I taught in Florida. That first flight was 20 years ago. Then, I traveled with a copy of Airman magazine in my hands, as my dream was to become a storyteller for Airman.

My dream didn't come true during my first active-duty enlistment, or during a I second that sent me from Alabama to the frigid climate of Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D. However, when I left the 319th Air Refueling Wing, everyone knew my dream and I was given a mock cover of Airman with a photo of a prairie dog. It has a prominent spot on my desk to this day.

After several other public affairs jobs, in and out of uniform, I was finally given my chance in September. Two weeks after joining the Airman staff, I was on my way to my first assignments--Arnold Air Force Base, Tenn. and Robins Air Force Base, Ga.

Of course, I had to get there first. The trip northeast with veteran photojournalist Lance Cheung and broadcaster Tech. Sgt. Steve German began in a stormy fashion--literally. A severe thunderstorm knocked out electricity in my neighborhood, so my trust,/alarm clock, which I counted on to awaken me in time for the 7:30 a.m. flight, let me down. Instead, I awoke at 6 a.m. I panicked because the drive to the airport takes 45 minutes in good weather. As it turns out, the same storm knocked out electricity at the airport, delaying our flight for more than two hours.

Fortunately, the stories we found at Arnold and Robins made the adventurous trip worth it. At the Arnold Engineering Development Center, located in a remote area in the middle of southern Tennessee, we got an extensive tour of the largest aerospace ground test facility in the nation.

As a shameless history buff, I enjoyed hearing the stories behind the Propulsion Wind Tunnel Facility and the yon Karman Gas Dynamics Facility, not to mention the Mark 1 Test Facility. This 82-foot, state-of-the-art space environment simulation test chamber was originally built for the Air Force space program, but its purpose changed with the creation of NASA in 1958.

The chamber is now used for full-scale space systems testing.

I was especially interested in the building of the von Karman facility, which was named after Dr. Theodore yon Karman, a leading aeronautical scientist who father of supersonic flight. Von Karman's findings led to the building of the facilities in 1957, and it was renamed for him two years later.

After the wind tunnels, it was off to Robins for a visit with the people at the maintenance depot. Our hosts at the 402nd Maintenance Wing introduced us to some pretty amazing technology such as the Aerial Multi-Axis Platform, commonly called an AMP.

However, what are most interesting at both installations are the perspectives of the people there. I enjoyed hearing how they view their work and its impact on the mission. These are the people who, in some cases, work 10 hours a day, six days a week, to make sure our warfighters are getting safe aircraft as soon as possible. Of course, there are many people just like them all over the Air Force and we need to hear their stories.

On the way back to San Antonio, my mind was back on the things it normally is after a story assignment. I was reflecting on how to best tell the stories of the people I met. I hope my effort will do them justice because all the people I interviewed had wonderful stories to tell. I am very happy to be the outlet that allows them to tell them to you.

Gift of Bible Lives On

The letter addressed to Ella Foy Riley arrived a week before Christmas and what would have been her 76th birthday.
Nati Marie Saenz was writing from Elsa, Texas to tell Riley how she valued the Bible the kind woman gave her for her seventh birthday, the day her family moved from Abbeville to Texas in 1987. It wasn’t until Riley’s family called her after receiving the letter that the girl, now 17, learned her older friend had been murdered in her home on May 21, 1990.
But the letter, which expressed the inspiration the girl has drawn from the Bible and the woman who gave it to her, made a positive impact on Riley’s family during the holiday season.
“I had been going through a depressed time,” said Pat Jones, Riley’s daughter who found her mother’s body early that Tuesday morning in the spring of 1990.
“But when I got that letter, it was the most uplifting thing to think that Mother had meant that much to her. That’s what Christmas is all about, what celebrating Christ is all about. Reading that letter made me feel really close to Mother.”
Saenz, who hopes to visit Riley’s family sometime in 1999, wanted to tell Riley her Bible helped get her through her own trials, such as the period when she suffered brain seizures after undergoing surgery for a tumor in 1995.
Fortunately, she is now seizure-free and is quite active in her church, where she teaches Bible classes for eighth-grade and first-grade children.
“I want you to know that I treasure that Bible with all my heart,” Saenz wrote Riley in the letter. “I’m sorry for not writing to you for all these years, but I want you to know that I have never forgotten you, and never will . . .
“I always remember you, not only for your kindness, but also for your friendship . . . I’m 17-years-old and a junior in high school, and I’m living a great life because I have the Lord and those wonderful memories of you in my life. I hope you get to read this letter and know how much I admired you and appreciated your kindness.”
Although she had lost contact with Riley in the decade since her family moved west, Saenz said a TV movie aired during Christmas motivated her to write. Then, on the day after Christmas and Riley’s birthday, she received the letter from Jones’ brother Wayne that included the sad news.
“I thought of her like my grandmother, and I was very excited when I got the letter,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in south Texas. “My family thought I was joking when I was reading it to them out loud. We were all shocked, and I couldn’t believe what I was reading.”
Jones was surprised to hear Saenz’s career goals. Since Riley’s murder, Jones has become active in Victims of Crime and Leniency (She serves as president of the Southeast Alabama VOCAL chapter.) as the family has suffered through the prosecution of the two men who killed her mother.
Willie McNair, the Abbeville man who had done lawn work for Riley before the murder, confessed of the crime and was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, and is now at Atmore Correctional Facility.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the sentence, and a Montgomery County jury sentenced McNair to life without parole, but Circuit Judge Edward Jackson overruled the decision and reinstated the death penalty.
Seven of McNair’s 10 death penalty appeals have been exhausted.
The other man implicated in the murder, Olin Grimsley, was only convicted of robbery charges and sentenced to life, which he is serving at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery.
Of course, Saenz knew none of this when she began considering a career in criminal justice. She plans to begin pursuing her degree at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio after high school graduation in 2000.
Although hearing of her friend’s death has provided more inspiration for a career in criminal prosecution, Saenz said her mind has been set in this direction for most of her life.
“Since I was a little girl, that’s all I wanted to be,” Saenz said.