Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Family, friends pause to remember McFarland
Montgomery Regional Hospital dedicates a memorial to its slain security guard.
Related
Multimedia
Trial updates
Complete coverage
BLACKSBURG -- Stone is forever.
The one that sits in front of Montgomery Regional Hospital, by the flagpoles and next to a freshly planted dogwood tree, is engraved with Derrick McFarland's name. It also notes the year he was born --1973 -- and the year he died -- 2006.
"It should be here a long time, even when his grandchildren come here," McFarland's father, Harold McFarland, said after the two-foot-wide stone was unveiled over the weekend. "We all have something tangible to come back to."
McFarland, a 32-year-old hospital security guard, was killed the morning of Aug. 20 as a Montgomery County Jail inmate escaped from a deputy's custody at the hospital.
William Charles Morva, 25, is charged with knocking out that deputy and taking his loaded pistol, then fatally shooting McFarland with it as he went to aid the deputy.
Morva's escape prompted a 37-hour manhunt that shut down Virginia Tech's campus on the first day of fall semester. He is charged with killing Cpl. Eric Sutphin of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office the next morning.
McFarland's wife, Cindy, has attended all of Morva's hearings and plans to be at his trial, which is scheduled for September.
"I just want to follow it through," she said. "He knows that we're still here and we're interested in seeing justice done."
For Shelly Shockley, Saturday morning's memorial service for McFarland brought back memories of the night he was killed.
Shockley, who worked with McFarland on Saturday and Sunday nights operating the hospital's phone system, remembers hearing a gunshot. At the time, she thought it was the sound of someone falling.
She never imagined it was her friend.
"I always considered Derrick my best friend and after this I realized he was everybody's best friend," Shockley said. "He never said anything unkind about anyone. He always had a smile on his face."
Alan Kim | The Roanoke Times
Rosalind McFarland was misty eyed after receiving condolensces from Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office deputy Charlie Sink during a memorial dedication ceremony for her son Derrick McFarland, the Montgomery Regional Hospital security guard who was killed Aug. 10.
McFarland kept watch over the hospital in 12-hour shifts every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night for more than two years. But he also made time to get to know people. He'd walk them in and out of the building, fetch ice for them, stop on his way to work to pick up their dinners, Shockley said.
"He was in my opinion the best security guard we ever had," Shockley said.
He was also a shoulder to cry on, she said.
"If somebody looked kind of sad he'd come by and say, 'You OK?'" she said.
And he always wanted to talk about his family. The pair would talk a couple of times every night, she said, "and every conversation was his family and his children."
McFarland's wife, Cindy, stood with her children, 4-year-old Kaneisha McFarland and 12-year-old Jonny Servellon, as Saturday's 10 a.m. event got under way.
They were surrounded by dozens of people -- hospital nurses and doctors and other employees; emergency medical technicians; Blacksburg police officers; nearly a dozen Montgomery County deputies, including Sheriff Tommy Whitt; and folks dressed in everything from their Sunday clothes to Virginia Tech T-shirts.
At the start of the service, hospital CEO Scott Hill announced that Cindy McFarland wanted to begin with a moment of silence for the victims of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech.
"I understand what these people are going through, especially the families," Cindy McFarland said later. "The way the community came together when Derrick and Eric died, they did the same thing with Virginia Tech."
Cindy McFarland said she was glad to see the hospital's efforts to keep her husband's memory alive.
"They wanted a place to come to remember Derrick ... especially our staff," said hospital spokeswoman Suzanne Barnette. "In the time that he was here he made a major impact and built a lot of relationships."
Hospital staff have been remembering McFarland in ways his family didn't even realize.
"To this day, Derrick's name still remains on our security schedule," said Charlie Smith, the hospital's director of engineering and security and McFarland's supervisor. Smith said he and other employees like to think McFarland's "watching over us."
"It touched my heart" to learn that, Cindy McFarland said.
Rosalind and Harold McFarland said many people have told them they feel like their son's presence remains at the hospital.
"Knowing that he touched so many lives has made me stronger," Rosalind McFarland said. "It makes you feel good to know that he did good."
McFarland's parents and his 25-year-old brother, Eric, made the five-hour drive from their Baltimore home to attend Saturday's ceremony.
They said their son made a good choice when he moved to Christiansburg.
"He told me he was more an outgoing country guy than an urbanite," Harold McFarland said. His son liked being in the woods and the small-town feel of the area he lived in. "I don't know where that came from," he said as he chuckled.
As he pulled a blue tarp off McFarland's memorial stone Saturday, Hill, the hospital's CEO, thanked Cindy McFarland "for sharing Derrick with us. Please know that we will never forget the impact he had on his community, our hospital and each other."
"I know it's always going to be here," Cindy McFarland said, "and that means a lot."
