"Preston to Radio"

Preston Glazebrook was one of the most unforgettable characters I ever met.

When we heard his call -- "Preston to Radio" -- on the two-way in the WTVR TV newsroom, it almost always meant that something was brewing on the police beat and WTVR was about to get film that was dramatic -- and maybe strange or disturbing.

Preston had been a fixture at WTVR since before I came home from the Air Force. I knew him casually as a reporter, but I really got to know him when I became news director and spent all day in the office.

Preston once brought me film of a shooting victim sitting up against a power pole in the Fan. The victim's wife, who had shot him, was comforting him. As Preston's film rolled, the man died in his wife's arms.

On another occasion, he brought us film of a city policeman dying in his patrol car after a high-speed chase through Northside Richmond. The officer's cruiser had spun out of control and slammed into a very old, very solid tree. Preston got there first and was filming as the first rescue team arrived. His telling images showed the officer's seatbelt buckled behind him to keep the buzzer from sounding.

Preston shot an even more intriguing story one night when a tire store was robbed. It wasn't film of the aftermath. It was film of the actual robbery in progress. Preston thought "those kids looked like they were up to no good," he told us, so he'd followed them and watched -- and filmed -- as they broke into the tire store and made off down the alley with as much high-end merchandise as they could carry. The city's Commonwealth's Attorney called me that night to tell me he'd never get a conviction if we put Preston's film on the air. Balderdash! We used it. Preston was as proud as a peacock.

Preston shot his film with a Bell and Howell Filmo 16mm turret-lens camera. The camera is so solid you could battle your way out of a riot with it and shoot pictures simultaneously. But sometimes Preston would forget to completely rack his lens into place, and the film would look like it was shot though a long tube. Preston rarely sighted through the viewfinder. He'd rest the camera on his immense stomach and fire away. Sometimes the framing was off-kilter, and the images often rose and fell with his breathing.

But Preston's film wasn't about art. It was about news, and it was compelling. His images were full of blood and guts, action, and drama -- and they were newsworthy.

One day he brought me film of body parts -- arms, a foot, a piece of a torso -- that were scattered along the trains tracks in Glen Allen. Preston had heard scanner chatter about some kids finding something. He was close by, and he got there first. The remains were of an escaped inmate who had tried to hop a freight train and missed. Preston's stuff was graphic, stomach-churning film. We used only the wide shots on the air, no close-ups, but you can bet that everybody in the newsroom wanted to see the outtakes.

Shooting film for us was Preston's hobby: He didn't want to make money, but he didn't want to lose money either. So when he hung around the newsroom at the end of the month, I knew he needed an assignment or two to break even. We'd find him something to shoot - a grip and grin, a ribbon-cutting, a simple story that didn't need a reporter tagging along.

We had to be careful where we sent Preston. He often forgot to put his false teeth in, and without them he looked demented. He wore work pants of uncertain age (and color) and an old plaid shirt with the tails hanging out. In the winter, he'd add a moth-eaten green cardigan.

Surprisingly, Preston was wealthy. On days when he was attending some corporate board meeting, he'd wear a blue-and-white checked, double-knit sport-coat, a tie he probably bought during World War II, a white shirt and -- yes -- his teeth. He was heavy into utility and railroad stocks.

One day when my car was in the shop Preston gave me a ride home in the car he used to cruise the streets. It was littered with junk-food wrappers, empty film reels and discarded soda cans. It was also wired with radios tuned to every police, fire and rescue squad in the metro area. The noise precluded conversation. Heck, you couldn't even hear yourself think. But Preston understood every word that came over his scanners. He could even put a name to many of the dispatchers.

Preston led the pack when it came to getting film of a good crime story on the air. He showed a generation of photographers and reporters how it was done, not by intellectualizing, but through a dogged determination to be first on the scene. He always had his camera loaded and ready. He was always hungry for a story, willing to work harder than the competition, willing to cruise the mean streets just a little bit longer.

Preston died in the early 1980s, a few years after I left WTVR TV.

Those of us who learned from his example were better reporters and photographers. His name deserves to be remembered.