Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 30, 1993 TAG: 9305300045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That he didn't die in vain.
"The drunk driving laws are not strong enough," said Leslie Pelton, his mother. "Drunk driving is attempted murder once you get behind the wheel."
Geoff Pelton, 20, was killed by a drunken driver earlier this month.
Pelton had been vocal in his opposition to drunken driving and had encouraged friends not to drink and drive. Only 20 minutes before a car crashed through his windshield, he lectured partygoers to stay off the highway if they were going to drink.
"If you drink and drive, you're just plain stupid," friends remembered him saying.
Leslie Pelton is the first to admit that her son was no angel. He was an average guy who played his car stereo too loud and argued with his mother when he felt she was being too bossy.
That does not keep her from taking up his cause following his death. She favors jail time for first-time DUI offenders and confiscation of their cars if the case justifies it.
"A drunk driver is just a random bullet out there," she said.
Geoff Pelton's life was snuffed out by a double-barrel threat. Stanley W. Brooks was drunk and speeding when the car he was driving crossed the median on Roy Webber Highway, went airborne and plowed into the front of Pelton's car.
Brooks' driving record - which included at least six suspensions - was so bad he had been ordered off Virginia's highways for 10 years.
"Everybody who has a child can feel this," said George Pelton, Geoff's father. "It is your worst nightmare come true."
George Pelton, like his son, had dreamed of making highways safer against drunken drivers. His car dealership, First Team Auto Mall, donates an Isuzu pickup truck to a high school student who attends an alcohol-free after-prom party.
"We lost our son," George Pelton said. "But our conviction was just as strong before the accident."
Although he graduated in 1992 from Cave Spring High School, Geoff Pelton was to have attended his first prom there this year.
In his early life, his health had been puny and he was a late bloomer. A chronic note-taker like his father, Geoffrey, who was attending Virginia Western Community College, had planned out his every prom-night move, including his pre-prom bath. Now, his prom-night notes have a bittersweet quality.
"The emotions are stronger than a river," George Pelton said. "I have different emotions every 30 seconds."
Among them are anger, emptiness and a deep, deep sorrow.
"This is not only my son," George Pelton said. "This was a special person."
His family didn't know how special until he died.
Leslie Pelton spent time in the funeral home consoling a 17-year-old boy who collapsed in her arms in grief. She learned of the time that Geoff had stopped along the road to give a vagrant $20.
"Geoffrey didn't make distinctions," Leslie Pelton said. "We have had parents call up and say, `Your son was like a big brother to our child.' "
On the morning of May 16, George and Leslie Pelton were in Chesapeake visiting a business associate, when they received a call on the telephone.
" `Geoffrey's been killed,' " George Pelton remembered telling his wife. "It was like a shot through the heart.'
The numbed couple quickly gathered their belongings and rushed back to Roanoke. They'd occasionally talk and weep. Mostly, there was silence.
"All I could think was to get back there," Leslie Pelton said. "It was the longest five hours of my life."
George Pelton just set the cruise control on his car and headed home.
"This has been such a fear all of my life," he said. "I didn't think I could live without a child. You do it because you have no choice."
When the couple got back to Roanoke, they went to the hospital, where Leslie Pelton demanded to see his body.
"I'd been with him his whole life," she said.
While the nurse tried to discourage her, she had to witness the cuts on his face and the slash where the seat belts had cut into his neck. His legs were so twisted and broken from the crash that the nurse would not allow her to look underneath the sheet.
Still, his family hopes that the memory of how he died will spur a continued public reaction to drunken drivers.
A week ago Saturday, Geoff's friends paid silent tribute on Williamson Road by inscribing his name on the back windows of their cars.
The Gary Clark Just-Say-No to Drugs Camp, where he worked as a counselor, has established a scholarship in his honor.
The real tributes may rest in the hearts and souls of the friends and family he left behind.
"I would give anything to have him back," George Pelton said. "Maybe what he didn't accomplish in life, he'll accomplish in death."
Keywords:
PROFILE FATALITY
by CNB