THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 5, 1996 TAG: 9601040129
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THUMBS UP
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
WHEN IT CAME TIME to select their Member of the Year for 1995, the Kempsville Volunteer Rescue Squad chose not one but three - or four - or even five - depending on how you want to count.
What the squad chose for the award was the Joseph Budy family, the whole Budy family. Make that the whole Budy family plus one.
While assistant squad Commander Dan Moore wasn't specifically named in the award, the Salem Lakes family figures he deserves to be honored, too. Come May, he'll become part of the clan when he marries Jenny, the younger of the two Budy daughters.
The first family member to become involved with the squad was Radford University graduate Christi. She's been an emergency medical technician with the group for four years now. Even while working on her nursing degree at the southwestern Virginia school, she never missed a beat as a volunteer.
``She came home and ran four duties a month the whole time she was at Radford,'' her proud mother, Kathy, said.
Since her graduation in May, she has taken as many shifts as she can fit in, at least twice the number required each month.
``I'm job-hunting and I keep hoping every time I show up in the emergency room that they might (hire) me,'' she joked.
She also serves (officially) as Kempsville's training officer and (unofficially) as the chief recruiter. That's how her mother, Kathy, ended up volunteering.
She started a little over a year ago, quickly worked her way up to emergency medical technician status, and takes at least her four required shifts each month. She also took on administrative duties almost from the beginning and now serves as the squad's treasurer.
Jenny Budy, who has used a wheel chair since a childhood accident, works with the squad as a primary assistant to its president, Ed Brazle. It's she who sends out hundreds of letters of appreciation to the volunteer squad's supporters and performs dozens of other administrative chores.
``I just kind of tag-along,'' she said.
Her role is much bigger than that, however. The family's first contact with the Kempsville Squad was on a terrifying day in the summer of 1986 when the then 9-year-old Jenny was shot by a young child who mistook a real handgun for a toy one.
It was the volunteer rescue workers who responded to the 911 call and provided the immediate care that probably saved her life.
After months of hospitalization and therapy, she returned home to a family determined to learn all the medical techniques that could help her live as normal a life as possible.
Now a criminal justice major at Old Dominion University, Jenny Budy met Moore through her sister. A Norfolk professional firefighter/paramedic who volunteers with the Kempsville squad, Moore and Christi Budy often rode together in the zone car, the vehicle with the highly trained personnel who go along on serious ambulance calls.
Budy told Moore about her sister. The two met, hit it off and eventually set a wedding date.
The fourth Budy, dad Joe, hasn't quite got around to signing his volunteer application yet, but the pressure is definitely on him. He, like Moore, has a day job that keeps him busy. As operations director for Lynnhaven Mall, he's just finished the most hectic time of his work year.
Even so, he has helped the rest of the family with administrative tasks and held down the homefront when the rest of the clan was tied up with rescue squad duties.
The family was formally honored for dedication at an awards banquet in November. The mayor was on hand and so was a large crowd of friends, Emergency Medical Services personnel and squad members.
The Budy's names were added to a long list of volunteers recognized throughout the squad's 45-year history, the first time that so many members of one family were honored at the same time. ILLUSTRATION: The Budy family - Christi and her fiance, Danny Moore; Jenny,
Joe and Kathy - serves in various capacities for the Kempsville
Volunteer Rescue Squad. Their selection as Member of the Year was a
first in the squad's 45-year history.
Photo by
JO-ANN CLEGG
by CNB