The Roanoke Times

Printed Sept. 26, 2000

By MARY BISHOP
THE ROANOKE TIMES

Danny Lee Overstreet's cubicle was a place where phone company workers often stopped for a laugh.

Monday morning, it was a shrine of flowers, sympathy cards and money collected for the family of the popular Verizon employee shot to death by a gunman in search of gay targets.

"Thank you Lord for sharing Danny with me in my life," Jana Hull wrote on a card for the family of the 43-year-old Overstreet. He died Friday night after a man shot him and six others at Roanoke's Backstreet Cafe, a favorite bar of gays and lesbians, as well as many straight people.

Overstreet handled orders and complaints about home service at the Verizon center on Airport Road. Counselors spent five hours there Monday listening to grief-stricken workers, many wearing bits of white ribbon in Overstreet's memory. Other Verizon offices handled calls so people could begin to process their loss.

Atop Overstreet's computer monitor a friend placed a framed picture of the rotund Overstreet sitting there, grinning and raising his arms with his usual exuberance.

On his desk lay eight white roses -- one for each of the seven members of his work team and one for his supervisor, Judy Scearce. She had been on vacation and didn't learn of his death until she heard phone messages at home Sunday night. Then she picked up Sunday's newspaper and couldn't believe what she read. Monday, her face was red from hours of intermittent tears.

Days ago, she said, Overstreet's team talked about Halloween costumes. Somebody wanted to be a werewolf. Overstreet volunteered to save trimmings from his poodle, Friday, to glue on their face and arms. It was just another way, Scearce said, that he threw himself into work and play. His was the first violent death of a co-worker that Scearce, 62, could remember in 43 years with the company.

"He had an infectious laugh," said his 17-year-old niece, Misty Overstreet. Her uncle's enthusiasm for plays and old black-and-white movies inspired her to take theater classes at William Fleming High School, where she is a senior.

He sometimes performed in drag under the name Iwanna, she said. An animal rights advocate, he donated regularly to organizations such as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"This man did not have a shred of prejudice in his body." That's why, she said, everyone who knew him and learned of his murder said, "No, not Danny!"

People around the Roanoke Valley have been trying to make sense of the shootings.

The shootings were the cause of much prayer and soul-searching Sunday at Unity Church of the Roanoke Valley, where Bruce Steele, 60, is a member. Though the shootings have brought unsavory national media coverage, it shouldn't reflect on Roanoke, he said. Instead, "it reflects on people who don't get the concept of getting along."

Before the shootings, Wendy Moore heard clergy say that Roanoke doesn't have hate crimes. She is director of the regional chapter of the National Conference for Community and Justice and vice president of the Roanoke Valley Ministers Conference.

"I'm sorry somebody had to die," she said, "but now we need to come together and say this is not going to happen in our town." On Oct. 11, NCCJ and the ministers conference will sponsor a forum on "Hate Crimes and the Response by the Religious Community" at 7:15 p.m. at Temple Emanuel on Persinger Road Southwest.

"The church has to say something," said the Rev. William Lee, pastor of Loudon Avenue Disciples of Christ. "We have to talk about this intolerance of persons who openly declare they are gay, and not pretend like it's not real."

At Virginia Western Community College, professor Betty Shepherd said the shootings prove Roanoke is not immune to violence. "We shouldn't think it wouldn't happen to us because we're too good or too small."

Despite what happened Friday night, City Councilwoman Linda Wyatt said, Roanoke is still a tolerant community as a whole. "I do hope it's a wake-up call to our community," she said, "that we need to teach our children about love and acceptance -- and not hate."

Staff writers Cody Lowe, Mike Allen, Kathy Lu and Todd Jackson contributed information to this story.

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