News Anchors Aren't Supposed To Cry...

One of my heroes in TV news is Steve Hartman.  He's works for CBS and travels the country reporting on every day folks.


He produces a series every week called "On the Road."  They are extremely moving pieces - brilliantly written, shot well, and the type of stories you want to share.


Tonight's report nearly brought CBS news anchor Scott Pelley to tears.  It's about a little girl who asks Santa for only one thing: her dad to come home from Iraq.


Grab a tissue...

27 years...

Have you ever been accused of something you didn't do?  Ever been called something you aren't or blamed for something you had nothing to do with?


I have.  The other day a viewer sent an email to my boss saying I'm a liar who can't be trusted.


It made me mad.


Then I met this guy.

Thomas Haynesworth.


You probably haven't heard of him unless you live in Virginia.


In 1984, he was arrested and charged with brutally raping several women in Richmond.  He went to jail.  He sat through multiple court hearings.  He was labeled a "violent rapist."  He was found guilty of the crimes.  He was sent to prison.

One problem.

Thomas Haynesworth had NOTHING to do with the crimes.

NOTHING.

He was walking to the grocery store to buy bread for Sunday dinner when a woman who had been attacked told a police officer Haynesworth was the culprit.

Within hours, he lost his freedom.

For 27 years.
Nearly three decades.
Locked up for something he didn't do.


Thomas spent nearly every waking hour in prison proclaiming his innocence.  When he wasn't studying the law, he was studying the Bible.  When he wasn't talking to his attorney, he was talking to God.


Fast forward to 2009.  Thomas takes a DNA test and is completely cleared of the crimes.  The rapes are linked to another man currently serving time for other sex crimes.


Since he's cleared in 2009, you'd think Thomas would be released from prison immediately, right?


Wrong.


It takes an additional two years to free him.  


Two years.  After it's been proven he was completely innocent.


Finally, in March, Thomas walked out of prison - but his nightmare was far from over.


The charges were still attached to his name.  He had a parole officer to report to every  week.  He was listed as a violent sex offender.  He couldn't go on a date, near a computer, playground, and had to stay away from his nieces and nephews.


Until yesterday.


Virginia's Attorney General emotionally announced that as of today, Thomas Haynesworth has been completely exonerated for the crimes.  

VA Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli

The AG openly wept as he apologized to Thomas on behalf of the state of Virginia.  He commended Thomas for persistently proclaiming his innocence and fighting for his freedom.

Thomas Haynesworth with Cuccinelli and his attorney from the Innocence Project.

Interestingly the prosecutors office's who fought so hard to lock Thomas up 27 years ago are the same ones who have been fighting the past two years to get him released from prison .  In fact, it's unheard of to have three state attorneys appear before the Court of Appeals and ask them to release a man on cases they themselves prosecuted.


Today Thomas's record is wiped clean. 


He is completely free.


I asked him what he learned in prison.  


PATIENCE was his response.  


I asked him how he remained optimistic.  


GOD and FAITH was response.  


I asked him if he was angry and wanted revenge.  


I'M MOVING ON was his response.


This morning, for the first time in almost three decades, Thomas Haynesworth woke up a completely free man.  


He showered, got dressed, ate breakfast, then left for his new job...working in the mailroom at the state attorney general's office.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Wow.  I haven't blogged in such a long time!  We've been so busy over the past few months! 


Here's a quick update:

In September we hopped on a plane and flew to Tennessee.  Erica's Aunt Donna and Uncle Rich have a farm near Nashville and we spent Labor Day weekend with them.

I've been a huge country music fan since I was a teenager and one of my dreams came true as we got to see a LIVE show at the Grand Ole Opry!  

Of course we had never heard of any of the singers (except Billy Dean) but we got a backstage tour and it was a lot of fun (Ironically, the day we left Nashville, Rascal Flatts, Alan Jackson, and a bunch of other famous artists performed.) 

We had a great time hanging out on the farm with Donna and Rich.  Donna has cancer and is beginning a serious round of chemotherapy this week.  We know she'll rebound quickly and be ready for us to visit when REBA performs at the Opry!

As we flew out of Nashville and into Richmond, we noticed the leaves were definitely changing.  I've lived in Virginia nearly three years and have never been on a hike to see the autumn leaves...until now!

Our good friends Kristen and Kyle Duncan are outdoor enthusiasts and know the perfect places to hike.  One Saturday we jumped in the car and drove to Charlottesville with their dogs Daisy and Lucy Moo.  The hike was a blast, the lookout was amazing, and the Duncan's have almost convinced me to get a dog.....yeah, right....

A week after our hike, Arianne (my sister), Ben (my brother-in-law), and Elanor (my niece) came to visit from Texas!  Erica and I had never met six-month-old Ela and we both agree she's one of the happiest baby's we've ever seen!  She always had a big grin on her face and was so cheerful.

We had such a fun time with the Coltrin's.  The highlight of the trip was visiting Monticello and seeing Jefferson's home...then eating delicious apple cider donuts at an orchard overlooking the Charlottesville.

Having a happy baby around has almost convinced us to have one of our own....

yeah, right....

After the Coltrin's left, we left for St. Mary's, Pennsylvania to celebrate Erica's grandma's 80th birthday.  Grandma Cuneo has 10 children and all but one were able to be there! 

The family rented the country club for the night and we had a huge Hawaiian luau party. 

The decorations were incredible and the roasted pig was scrumptuous!  Erica did a great job creating a really nice slideshow of Grandma's life.  You can read more about the party on Erica's blog here.


Now the holidays are here and we're getting ready for Christmas! We had a fun Thanksgiving with Erica's family and spent HOURS shopping on Black Friday!

I think we visited every store between Richmond and Williamsburg and we got some AMAZING deals.  The best part about it is 95 percent of what we bought is now for sale on Ebay! 


More on that in my next post.........

Mormons, Christians, and Cults

The "Are Mormon's Christian?" debate is suddenly thrust into the national spotlight.


Again.


I thought we were over this.


Four years ago, when Mitt Romney first ran for president, it seemed all anyone could talk about was his Mormon faith.  Every interview, every debate, every conversation it was brought up.


Now, once again, some folks can't seem to leave it alone. 


You probably heard a prominent Texas pastor is proclaiming that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are not Christian and are, in fact, part of a cult.


Serious?  Really??


I think I'll let the evangelical president of Fuller Theological Seminary in California answer that...


And, to all my Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant, Muslim, Agnostic, Born-Again, and Atheist (am I forgetting anyone?) friends who know who Latter-day Saints truly are and defend our faith, 
THANKS.

This evangelical says Mormonism isn’t a cult Editor’s note: Richard J. Mouw is President of Fuller Theological Seminary, an evangelical school in Pasadena, California. By Richard J. Mouw, Special to CNN Some prominent evangelical pastors have been telling their constituents not to support Mitt Romney’s bid for the presidential nomination. Because Romney is Mormon, they say, to cast a vote for him is to promote the cause of a cult. I beg to differ. For the past dozen years, I’ve been co-chairing, with Professor Robert Millet of Brigham Young University – the respected Mormon school - a behind-closed-doors dialogue between about a dozen evangelicals and an equal number of our Mormon counterparts. We have talked for many hours about key theological issues: the authority of the Bible, the person and work of Christ, the Trinity, “continuing revelations” and the career of Joseph Smith, the 19th century founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), better known as the Mormon Church. We evangelicals and our Mormon counterparts disagree about some important theological questions. But we have also found that on some matters we are not as far apart as we thought we were. I know cults. I have studied them and taught about them for a long time. It’s worth noting that people have wondered whether I belong to a cult, with a reporter once asking me: “Evangelicalism, is that like Scientology and Hare Krishna?” Religious cults are very much us-versus-them. Their adherents are taught to think that they are the only ones who benefit from divine approval. They don’t like to engage in serious, respectful give-and-take dialogue with people with whom they disagree. Nor do they promote the kind of scholarship that works alongside others in pursuing the truth. Jehovah’s Witnesses, for instance, haven’t established a university. They don’t sponsor a law school or offer graduate-level courses in world religions. The same goes for Christian Science. If you want to call those groups cults I will not argue with you. But Brigham Young University is a world-class educational institution, with professors who’ve earned doctorates from some of the best universities in the world. Several of the top leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have PhDs from Ivy League schools. These folks talk admiringly of the evangelical Billy Graham and the Catholic Mother Teresa, and they enjoy reading the evangelical C.S. Lewis and Father Henri Nouwen, a Catholic. That is not the kind of thing you run into in anti-Christian cults. So are Mormons Christians? For me, that’s a complicated question. My Mormon friends and I disagree on enough subjects that I am not prepared to say that their theology falls within the scope of historic Christian teaching. But the important thing is that we continue to talk about these things, and with increasing candor and mutual openness to correction. No one has shown any impulse to walk away from the table of dialogue. We do all of this with the blessing of many leaders from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some of whom have become good friends. While I am not prepared to reclassify Mormonism as possessing undeniably Christian theology, I do accept many of my Mormon friends as genuine followers of the Jesus whom I worship as the divine Savior. I find Mormons to be more Christ-centered than they have been in the past. I recently showed a video to my evangelical Fuller Seminary students of Mormon Elder Jeffrey Holland, one of the Twelve Apostles who help lead the LDS church. The video captures Holland speaking to thousands of Mormons about Christ’s death on the cross. Several of my students remarked that if they had not known that he was a Mormon leader they would have guessed that he was an evangelical preacher. The current criticisms of Mitt Romney’s religious affiliation recall for many of us the challenges John Kennedy faced when he was campaigning for the presidency in 1960. Some well-known Protestant preachers (including Norman Vincent Peale) warned against putting a Catholic in the White House. Kennedy’s famous speech to Houston pastors clarifying his religious beliefs as they related to his political leadership helped his cause quite a bit. But the real changes in popular attitudes toward Catholicism happened more slowly, as Catholic Church leaders and scholars engaged in a new kind of dialogue with each other and representatives of other faith groups, most dramatically at the Second Vatican Council during the early years of the 1960s. Cults do not engage in those kinds of self-examining conversations. If they do, they do not remain cults. Those of us who have made the effort to engage Mormons in friendly and sustained give-and-take conversations have come to see them as good citizens whose life of faith often exhibits qualities that are worthy of the Christian label, even as we continue to engage in friendly arguments with them about crucial theological issues. Mitt Romney deserves what every politician running for office deserves: a careful examination of his views on policy and his philosophy of government. But he does not deserve to be labeled a cultist.

And the winner of a new car is...

After begging you nonstop for weeks...
After posting numerous Facebook updates and sending emails...
After walking the VCU campus for hours and giving out candy to 500 students...
After receiving more votes (1200+) than any other video...

 Today we learned we did *NOT* win a new car from AAA.

Who did win? Not the first, second, third, fourth, or fifth place contestant...no, the SIXTH PLACE CONTESANT (who earned 300 votes) will be driving a brand new Lexus.

Why didn't we win? We're not really sure. All AAA will tell us is each "KUDOS" vote had to meet three criteria...and apparently 900 our votes met that criteria.

They will not tell us what the criteria is, how many of our votes were disqualified, why this was not explained in the rules, why the rules were changed in the middle of the contest, and why the winner was announced a week and a half later than scheduled.

We can't thank you enough for helping us out. EVERYONE was so supportive and kind. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

If you feel like leaving a comment on the AAA "Let's Drive" page, click here to join many others who aren't happy with the results. 

The last day...and we need YOU!

It has been a LONG contest...but today is the FINAL DAY for our video competition!

We have been in first place the entire time...UNTIL NOW.

At last check, we are LOSING BY ABOUT 50 VOTES!!!!!

IT IS SO CLOSE!!

If you haven't voted yet, PLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEASE click on the link, register, and push the red/white "KUDOS" star. It is easy, free, and will take less than a minute.

If you have voted, please spread the word and ask others to vote. Co-workers, friends, family members, neighbors...anyone you know!

Thank you all so much for your support! The winner should be announced next week once all the votes are verified. Hopefully it will be us!

Here's the link:

http://community.midatlantic.aaa.com/t5/LetsDrive/Car-E-R/cns-p/11509

We are going to celebrate once the contest is over...and we PROMISE we are done harassing you (at least until the next contest).

Shake, Rattle, and Roll!

While eating lunch with Erica today we talked about getting a 72 hour kit and being prepared for a natural disaster or emergency.  It looks like Hurricane Irene may hit the east coast this weekend and Richmond is expected to feel her impact.


After lunch I stopped at a store on my way to work.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, it started to shake...first a little...then a lot...then a lot more.  This lasted a good 30-40 seconds!

I figured it was an earthquake but wanted to be sure so I called the newsroom.  They confirmed my thoughts and told me to get to work immediately.


Within 30 seconds of entering the building, a photographer and I were walking right back out...on our way to the VCU Medical Center.  We were told the biggest hospital in Virginia was being evacuated.


As we hopped into a live truck, I tried...and tried...and tried...and tried to call Erica.  None of my phone calls were going through.  I couldn't send text messages, couldn't send emails, couldn't check the internet for updates, couldn't make any calls.  The phone networks were jammed.


We pulled into downtown Richmond and people were EVERYWHERE.  All of the high-rise office buildings were evacuated and folks were lined up and down the streets.

By the time we got to VCU, the hospital was allowing patients and others back inside.  I was finally able to reach Erica...who strongly felt the earthquake while working.


From here my photographer and I sent to an elderly housing tower.  The stairwell was damaged and engineers didn't think the building was safe so they ordered the 400 people inside to leave.


Imagine moving 400 senior citizens, many in wheelchair or on walkers with oxygen, from an 11 story building with a crumbling stairwell!  The firefighters worked quick and had everyone out in under an hour.


I spent the entire afternoon at this residence tower.  We were on the air for five hours straight with no commercials.  Here's one of my reports:






The 5.8 quake was felt from North Carolina to New York.  Miraculously, no one was killed or seriously hurt.  


Sure, some things were damaged... like the spirals of the Washington DC LDS Temple and the National Cathedral...but things could have been a lot worse.

Erica and I were worried many of our fragile items sitting on our mantle would have fallen to the ground but everything is in perfect condition. (However, some spices in the kitchen dropped to the floor).

With an earthquake behind us and a likely hurricane in front of us, Erica didn't waste any time getting us prepared!  She went straight to the store tonight and began to build our food storage. 


Hopefully this weekend's storm fizzles out...but should it happen, we'll be ready!


PS If you haven't voted for our video yet, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE help out by clicking here.  Thanks!

We need your help!

A few weeks ago we entered a AAA video contest to win a new car.   We found out today we are one of ten finalists and whoever gets the most votes gets a BRAND NEW CAR! WE ARE SO EXCITED...and of course we are asking for votes!   PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE HELP US OUT! It will take LESS THAN TWO MINUTES - I promise! Here's how to vote: 1.  Click here. 2.  Watch the video then click on the box on the UPPER RIGHT HAND CORNER that says "Cast your Vote." 3.  You will have to register...but it's FREE and quick.  Make up whatever login and password you want, type in your email and birthday, then click REGISTER. 4.  On the next page click on the red star on upper left top of the page. NOW YOU ARE DONE! Let me know if you have any questions...and what you think of the video!  We want to get people's opinions! Also...SHARE the link with your family and friends!   We promise to give you a ride when we win our new car!

Sad

This has been a sad weekend.

Saturday Erica and I were helping friends move when I got a shocking call that a close friend and co-worker had passed away.

Coz Johnson was a photojournalist who I've worked with several nights a week for the past two and a half years.  We've been all over Virginia covering all kinds of stories.

When I started at WRIC, Coz had only been shooting a few months...but that didn't matter.  He was willing to try new things, tell stories in a creative way, push the envelope, and be as artistic as possible.  I saw him grow as a photographer...and he helped me grow as a reporter.

Coz shooting video of me rappelling. 

You get to know a person pretty well when you spend hundreds of hours with them.  

He knew me well - my wife, my family, my interests, my church.  He came to our ring ceremony and wedding reception. 

I knew Coz well - his interests, his dreams to work in film, his battle with weight and diabetes, his caring easy-going attitude.

He put up with my juvenile number when he'd ask me a question and I'd respond, "Be-COZ..."  Or when I'd say, "This story is for a great COZ."  He'd always respond, "Really, Nate?"

He is a true friend.

Saturday morning, when he didn't show up for work and wasn't answering the phone, two co-workers went to his house. 

His car was there but he wasn't answering the door.  Coz lived alone and it was possible he overslept...but police and EMS were called.

After forcing their way inside, officers discovered that he had passed away.  His heart simply stopped.

I was the last reporter to work with Coz.  His normal days off are Thursday and Friday.  On Wednesday, he called me into the edit bay to show me the story before it went to air.  

I told him I liked it and wished him a good weekend.  A few minutes later, I walked out the door and drove home.

I know Coz is in a better place.  I know he is happy and free of pain.  I know I will see him again.

Still, this has been a sad weekend.