ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606180006
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-18 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DONNA ALVIS-BANKS STAFF WRITER
LIKE father. Like son.
Tony Conner grew up admiring his father, Albert.
"I always looked up to him like the kind of person I wanted to be," Conner wrote in his letter to the newspaper. "He taught me love of God, love of country and love of family."
Conner, a Christiansburg native, decided to follow in his father's footsteps when he enlisted in the U.S. Army and received training as a medical specialist. His father had served during World War II.
Conner shipped off to Vietnam. It was there that his life changed forever.
"A cease-fire had been called at that time," Conner remembered, "but the Viet Cong were still shooting after the cease-fire. I was trying to get a guy loaded into the chopper when I was caught in a round of fire."
Conner suffered a back injury that eventually left him totally disabled. He's 41 now and unable to walk.
Before his father's death two years ago, the two found comfort in each other.
"He was disabled and I was disabled," Conner said. "He took me to the doctor and I took him to the doctor. I feel like God blessed me with the greatest dad a son could have."
Conner says he hopes he can pass on his dad's legacy to his two sons and two daughters.
"When my dad passed away, a part of me also died," he wrote, "but not the knowledge and love he gave to me and our family."
Like father. Like daughter.
Now that she's 29 and a mother of two daughters, Laura Hilton of Newport finally appreciates the lesson she learned from her father.
"My father taught me patience," Hilton wrote. "When I was growing up, I had almost no patience. My dad, who has been confined to a wheelchair for 28 years, knows well the meaning of patience."
David Love was only 23 when an auto accident left him disabled. A few years later, he and his wife divorced. He continued to be an active father to his two children.
"I remember times when I would try to do something and I would get extremely upset and throw down my project because it wasn't exactly right," Hilton said. "My dad would very calmly say to me, 'You've just got to have patience.'"
"That would make me more upset, thinking that he didn't know what I was going through," Hilton recalled. "But, little did I know, what he had to go through. I'm sure it took a whole bunch of patience raising two teen-agers and trying to maintain a household on his own."
Hilton said her father never raised his voice to her or her older brother, Dennis. She can't remember a time when he lost his temper.
"I now possess a small portion of the patience that he has and I am truly thankful for the example he has been and still is to me."
John Slusher's hands, calloused and hardened from years of toil, now play a gentle bass guitar.
"He says now that he cannot work, his music is what keeps him going," wrote his youngest daughter, Tammy. These days, her dad spends his time singing gospel songs and playing bluegrass music.
"My father has given me a lot of advice over these past 23 years. Most of it has been ignored," said Tammy Slusher. "I've grown up since the days I used to call my father 'old-fashioned.' It turns out he actually knows what he's talking about."
Forced to retire recently because of health problems, John Slusher, 58, has dedicated his life to hard work.
"For 14 years he worked as a meat cutter at the old A&P store in Blacksburg," his daughter recalled. "He had started at Virginia Tech as only a janitor and earned his way up to head preventive maintenance man. He worked there for about 20 years. After 10 years at Tech, he took on a second job at Wade's in Christiansburg as a meat cutter. He worked at Virginia Tech and Wade's until his health got bad."
Tammy Slusher said her father was never too busy to give her and her three sisters love and support.
"When I take a fall, he's always been there to dust me off and pick me up off the ground. He's taught us that hard work, self-motivation and living one day at a time is part of life."
For Sharon Flinchum of Christiansburg, it wasn't what her father said but what he didn't say that helped her grow.
Flinchum, 30, said her father, Edward Epperly, let her find out truths for herself.
"Sometimes, I found out the hard way," she admitted.
"Growing up, my dad was always quiet and never gave me a lot of advice unless it was very important," Flinchum said. "And when he did, I tried to listen because I really respected his opinion. As I started dating, he would tell me what he thought but always let me make my own decision."
"After a divorce later in life, I dated some but dad didn't say much until I met a man who is my husband now. The first thing after meeting him, he said, 'Sharon, I really like that man.'"
So on July 6, 1995, Edward Epperly's daughter married Wendell Flinchum.
"I know now that father does know best," she added, "because marrying that man my father liked was one of the best decisions I ever made."
Pat Myers believes her father is one in a million.
After all, how many fathers can claim honorary membership in United Methodist Women?
George "Junior" Craighead can.
"He is the kindest, sweetest man in the whole wide world," Myers says. "The ladies at the church voted to make him an honorary member because he's done so much for them."
When the women of Lafayette United Methodist Church have a spaghetti supper, they can count on Craighead to take the heat. He's right there in the kitchen, whipping up the sauce, ladling it out and scrubbing the pots and pans afterward.
It's that work ethic and sense of responsibility that Myers says makes her so proud of her father.
"He devotes his days to helping others in his family, his church and his community," she wrote. "He is well known in his neighborhood as the man to call when you need anything - appliances repaired, a ride to the doctor or the grocery store, work done on your home or the church building, errands run, food taken to the sick, shut-in or bereaved."
Myers, 46, said her father has spent his life doing for others.
"Sometimes," she admitted, "I would get frustrated with him when he would put himself in a situation where I thought he might be taken advantage of."
Her father never bypassed motorists stranded on the highway. Once, Myers remembered, he stopped to assist a rather curious couple.
"The man told this big story about how he was from France and was on his way to Nashville to cut a country-western album. Dad fixed his car and wouldn't take a penny. The man said he would send Dad a copy of his record when it came out."
"Yeah, right!" was Myers' response when her father related the story at home.
She should have known better than to doubt her father's faith. A couple of months later, she found a package from France in the Craighead mailbox.
"Dad always said that every kind action comes back to you in a double portion," Myers noted. "If everyone patterned their life after the example my dad has set, what a wonderful place our world would be to live in."
LENGTH: Long : 139 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. 1. Pat Myers with dad, Georgeby CNB"Junior" Craighead (ran on NRV-1). 2. Tony Conner holds a photo of
his mother and his now-deceased father Albert. 3. Sharon Flinchum
(right) of Christiansburg says her father, Edward Epperly (left)
wasn't big on talking, instead letting her find out truths for
herself. "Sometimes, I found out the hard way," she admitted.
color.