HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) – Aug. 26 marked 10 years since Alison B. Parker — a 2012 James Madison University alumna, former WHSV intern and former reporter with WDBJ7 — and her photographer, Adam Ward, were fatally shot during a live report in the field.
Brad Jenkins — the general manager and adviser for The Breeze, JMU’s student-run news organization — worked with Parker during her time as a student in JMU’s School of Media Arts and Design (SMAD). Parker also served as the news editor for The Breeze.
While the anniversary of Parker’s death brings back memories of her and that day, Jenkins said he and other faculty who knew Parker choose to remember her not for how she died, but instead on how she lived her life and the legacy she continues to leave behind at the university.
“There was this really fierce journalistic ability about her,” Jenkins said, “but it was in this really sweet, kind personality that she had.”
Some of the other core traits that Jenkins said defined Parker were her tenacity and quick problem-solving.
“I mentor students, but in a lot of ways, she was just so far ahead that she could figure those things out as she was doing it. There was another time she was doing a live shot here at JMU … and a big box truck was in the way of her live shot,” Jenkins recalled. “She basically, you know, went over there and told him to move the truck. She knew how to get the story and wasn’t afraid to get the story.”
Parker and her legacy are a persistent topic of conversation on JMU’s campus, Jenkins said. He often shares her story while giving tours of the Alison B. Parker Studio in Harrison Hall, where JMU’s student newscast, Breeze TV, operates, as well as other classes in the media arts program. Parker’s parents also support a memorial scholarship in their daughter’s name that is awarded each year to an incoming freshman and rising senior within the SMAD department who share “the passion for journalism and commitment to academic excellence exemplified by Alison Bailey Parker,” according to the SMAD website.
“It’s interesting because the the further we get away from this — now 10 years later — fewer people maybe know what happened, or they just have a vague memory of it,” Jenkins said. “For us, it’s a very vivid memory that we’ll never forget, so it’s good to be able to say, ‘Hey, this studio is named after Alison Parker. Let me tell you about her.’ And then you can kind of see there’s just a real connection.”
Jenkins added that continuing to share Parker’s “inspiring” story with students is also a responsibility for him and other faculty.
“I take it very seriously, having known her, to be able to tell other people who she was and keep her memory and her legacy alive here at JMU,” Jenkins said.
Copyright 2025 WHSV. All rights reserved.
Source link
#JMU #instructor #reflects #Alison #Parkers #legacy