Lessons for us all in the Tolly Carr saga
This week's column.
The grim tone and pained expressions are gone, at least for now, on WXII (Channel 12)'s early morning newscasts.
The anchors are smiling and joking again, in the we-all-love-each-other-we-really-do way that morning anchors are known for.
On Thursday, the Channel 12 morning crew's wacky traffic woman wore a red clown nose and then muddled, following a joke, through a report of an accident somewhere (she apparently is an acquired taste that I have yet to acquire)
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But it is a lot easier to grin and bear such silliness after watching many of these same people struggle three weeks ago through reporting that one of their own, 32-year-old co-anchor Tolly Carr, had been involved in a fatal tragedy.
Carr had seemed tailor-made for the job, which he had only recently won, and he handled it with professionalism and ease. But he is likely gone from Channel 12 forever.
His career and his future are on hold after a pickup truck he was driving ran off a street in Winston-Salem on March 11 and struck and killed 26-year-old Casey Bokhoven.
Carr's day in court was continued last week to May 9. In the meantime, he has entered a 28-day rehabilitation program. Prosecutors say they have the results of Carr's blood-alcohol tests taken on the morning of the accident. But they won't release them until the investigation is finished.
Part of the high interest in the Carr case is his local celebrity and, frankly, the odd satisfaction some of us seem to get from cheering someone's rise and then reveling in his fall.
But, to be honest, this story is as much about us as it is about Tolly Carr.
We, as a society, don't tolerate drinking and driving the way we used to, as stiffer penalties and the harsher social stigmas attached to such offenses attest.
But recent headlines make you wonder whether we're just talking a good game.
For instance, Daniel Carrington Tanner, 22, of High Point, was sentenced last week to serve between four years and three months and nearly six years in the death of a 22-year-old Greensboro man.
On March 18, 2006, Tanner's Dodge Durango struck a Honda driven by Alex Christopher Stevenson, killing him instantly, and injuring a passenger.
Tanner's blood-alcohol level had been more than three times the legal limit.
Even worse, he'd had a previous drunk-driving arrest in Virginia.
Superior Court Judge Edgar Gregory suggested that Tanner speak, after he has done his time in prison, to college and high school students about the dangers of drunken driving.
He might start at Raleigh's Wakefield High.
In January, Sadiki Young, 18, a Wakefield senior, died when the car in which he was a passenger veered off the pavement and slid down an embankment. He had attended a party where alcohol had been served to him and other underage drinkers.
State Division of Alcohol Law Enforcement agents on March 9 charged five Wakefield High students with taking part in that party.
A week later, six more Wakefield High students were cited for being at a similar drinking party.
In less than one year, five Wakefield students have died in alcohol-related crashes.
Small wonder. A front-page item last week noted that more people in North Carolina between the ages of 18 and 25 were involved in binge drinking than voted in the 2000 and 2004 elections.
During 2005, 549 people in North Carolina died in alcohol-related crashes. That accounts for 36 percent of all traffic-related deaths.
One can only speculate, then, whether collectively our outrage about drunk driving really matches our personal commitment.
Whether we see drinking and driving not as something to avoid doing — but as something to avoid getting caught doing.
After all, if a roomful of us were asked to answer, honestly, whether somewhere along the way we'd climbed behind the wheel after one too many drinks, how many would raise our hands?
Comments (6)
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Read Scott Sexton article in the WSJ this morning.
I was wacked by a dwi, later my wife and children was wacked by a dwi. Enough Said? Nothing happens to these people. I can raise my hand, I have seen what happens to other people when one choose to drink and drive. Are you any more dead when shot by a gun, are killed by a dwi?
Posted on April 8, 2007 9:37 AM
Nice cartoon today, Allen.
Now, we all know that in light of the N&R's inchoate stance on racial busing, (ie advocating it for another town but not your own) accurate representations of the interminable High Point school scandals understandbly have never exactly been the N&R's forte, but equating someone who simply wants the scandals to end and give students a choice of where to go to school with another one who advocates the continued active bus-napping of students and portraying both as some type of Pied Piper does not seem accurate, but maybe it's just me.
Also, where was the Grand Piper of all?
Our beloved ace realtor and prime mover of Davidson co. real estate-Dot.
Posted on April 8, 2007 9:55 AM
You don't like the way the public schools are going in High Point? Fa la-la-la-la.
Well I got friends on the boards at Wesleyan. Fa-la-la-la-la
And High Point Christian and Westchester,
Fa-la-la-la-la,
If you got the legal tender.
Fa-la-la-la-la
See we all got together at the Oyster Roast. Fa-la-la-la-la
Because when I'm through, public education in High Point's toast. Fa-la-la-la-la
And if private school doesn't suit your fancy fa'la'la-la-la
Follow me down to Davidson County Fa-la-la-la-la.
I'm sure we have something that 'ell make you content. Fa-la-la-la.
And my Craven co. will get their ten percent.
FA-LA-LA-LA-LA
Follow me home to Davidson county, fa-la'la'la'la.
Posted on April 8, 2007 10:35 AM
Regarding today's editorial cartoon:
Allen,
To be fair, the cartoon would have had Childs standing several miles away from the students trying to get them to ride a bus for several hours and driving past 3 schools to get to him.
Hebert would have been standing right beside a school with the students.
As a father, which would you choose? Or I should say - wouldn't you want to choose?
Posted on April 8, 2007 2:34 PM
Dude, something is dreadfully wrong with your blog software. Your Don Imus post "can't be found." Which is the same thing that's been happening with Nancy McLaughlin's blog for nearly a month.
You folks planning to get this fixed some time or what?
Posted on April 9, 2007 7:11 PM
At least Imus can bring himself to apologize. I can't say the same for Deena Hayes and her "pattern of making offensive racists comments over the years"...see, same crap, different take on it, huh Allen?
Posted on April 10, 2007 9:36 AM