Tough Day to be an Annapolitian

The last 24 hours have been a roller coaster of emotions for the Annapolis community. My wife works at the Anne Arundel Medical Center and spent hours locked in an inside office with their patients waiting for the lock down to end. Like many in the Annapolis, the first I heard about the situation was a text from me wife telling me there was an active shooter nearby and the hospital was on lock down. After several hours, she was able to leave and go home.

After getting my wife's text, I immediately started looking on social media and came to realize the Capital Gazette office had been attacked. Having lived in the Annapolis for 30 years and being active in my local Rotary Club, I had many opportunities to work with the Capital Gazette staff. I quickly went through my mental Rolodex and came up with the names of two Gazette staff I had collaborated with and I emailed them both. I heard back from one pretty quickly, but not from the other until late last night. Thankfully, they were both safe. So, while I was still very sad about what happened, I thought I escaped the additional pain of knowing any of the victims.

Then my daughter called and she was upset. When I asked her why, she told me that we did, in fact know, one of the victims. Being a community-based newspaper, each week, the Gazette spotlights a local high school student who excels in both academic and community engagement. In 2014, my daughter was selected and was interviewed by Wendi Winters. According to the newspaper: "Winters covered all sorts of local news at the Capital Gazette and wrote columns for the Home of the Week, Teen of the Week and Around Broadneck features. She joined the staff full-time in May 2013..." I remember Wendi being excited to interview Simone and Simone remembers spending an afternoon with Wendi as she did her job as a reporter, teasing interesting information from my daughter for the article she was to write.

While writing Teen of the Week articles certainly wouldn't earn Wendi a Pulitzer prize, to my my wife and me, it was an important "coming out" for my daughter, a rapidly blossoming young women who was coming into her own. We have the article from the paper framed and hanging in our home. Each time I pass it, I now will think of the kind local reporter who made my daughter feel very proud of her accomplishments.

The Annapolis community will miss Wendi and the other shooting victims as well as the loss of our collective innocence.

For those that are interested, here is the link to the online version of the article Wendi wrote about my daughter: