Chapter Nine

A Shift To Higher Cotton




The Escue Family July 1980.

It was 1971 and Lloyd and Bernice had been in business in Birmingham coming up on four years. Things had been happening a little faster than would have been considered ideal from a mental standpoint. It was hard to keep pace with the advancements in technology in the communications field then, much as it is in the field of computers today.

In January, Lloyd and Bernice were invited to attend the inauguration of George Wallace as Governor of Alabama in Montgomery. This was a special invitation for all of the festivities, including a reception at the Governor's Mansion. This was brought on by the fact that Lloyd and Bernice had become acquainted with James "Jim" and Bobbie Jo Parsons. Bobbie Jo was the daughter of Governor George Wallace. Lloyd and Jim Parsons had been working together developing plans for establishing a network for radio paging in Alabama. They became partners in the venture but Jim was bought out before the company was actually formed. On inauguration day, Lloyd actually ended up having a discussion with Governor Wallace, while sitting on the bed in the master bedroom of the mansion, concerning the need for classifying Radio Common Carriers as utilities and putting them under the control of the Public Service Commission in Alabama. Being inaugurated as governor was nothing new to George Wallace so he had plenty of time for conversations such as this.

A corporation called Telpage, Inc. was formed by Lloyd and Bernice to provide radio paging in the Birmingham area with future plans of expanding to all of the major cities in Alabama. A company like Telpage was known as a Radio Common Carrier (RCC). Radio Common Carriers also provided mobile telephone service. Paging was still pretty much in its infancy at that time and Lloyd saw the potential for that market. When portable radios and pagers started to get popular, Birmingham Communications had to expand to meet the demand. A separate operating location was set up on the south side of Birmingham where only portable radios were serviced. That separate location became known as Southeast Portable Repair due to the volume of portable equipment that was coming into the shop for repairs from all over the southeast. Another MSS like Birmingham Communications was setup south of Birmingham in Alabaster. It was called Shelby Communications. Telpage, Inc., with its radio paging system, operated out of the Birmingham Communications office when it began service.

The family, minus Lloyd, went down to Silverhill for Rose's 52nd birthday, January 30th 1971. Lloyd had to fly to Chicago on some business with Motorola related to the new developments. While there in Silverhill, Sherry and Mike got some hands on experience in planting a garden. Walter had it all plowed and ready to go when they came down. Rose was driving a 1960 Model Chevrolet at the time and as you can imagine, it was definitely on its last legs. The Escues had just bought a year-old Buick so they brought their 1967 Rambler down for Rose. Linda drove the Rambler down and Bernice drove the Buick. They offered Rose a deal she couldn't refuse and they all went back in the Buick.

Besides the business growing rapidly, there were a lot of big happenings in Bernice's family as 1971 progressed. Melvin graduated from high school and then went to a 4-H convention in Los Angeles in July. After his time in California he flew to Idaho for a visit of a couple of weeks there. He had received some high honors as a result of his achievements in 4-H. Tom and Vlasta Novacek paid a visit from Idaho to Silverhill and then drove Rose to Birmingham where they attended Linda's graduation from Birmingham Southern. They all stayed at the Escue home while there and after the graduation, Tom and Vlasta headed back to Idaho and Rose flew to Mobile. Melvin was off to Faulkner Junior College in Bay Minette when school started there in the fall. That boy put himself through school with the scholarships he earned and the money he earned by his hard work all through high school. The family all gathered at the Foukals for Thanksgiving as usual.

May 1971 Telpage bought the paging channels in Montgomery and the Motorola Service Station and the building where it operated. A MSS was established in Tuscaloosa and a building was built to house it and a Telpage office as well. A paging channel was put into operation there, increasing the Telpage network in Alabama.

During the summer of 1972 Lloyd sold his single-engine Cessna and bought a twin-engine Beechcraft Travelair. Not long after that he suffered a heart attack. He was hospitalized in Austin, Texas for sometime before Bernice was finally able to get him back to Birmingham the middle of July. Lloyd's major concern was that it might end his flying. Walter made a trip up to Birmingham to see him the end of the month. Lloyd was having to work at home and was not allowed to drive. Bernice drove them to the airport so Lloyd could show Walter his new airplane. Even towards the end of September he was restricted as to what he could and could not do. They kept doing test trying to determine exactly what was wrong with his heart and could never find anything actually wrong.

The Kuceras came to Birmingham from Idaho in November, the Monday before Thanksgiving. They just wanted to check things out firsthand. Who could believe all this was happening without seeing it with their own eyes. The whole bunch then went down to Silverhill for Thanksgiving. The Kuceras flew to Mobile and Walter picked them up in his blue pickup truck. Now that was a real Alabama welcome, don't you think. The rest of the Birmingham clan drove down after school on Wednesday. This was a special Thanksgiving for all to be together. At Christmas time the family went up to Kentucky to visit the Escues but flew back home for Christmas day. Within a month, Lloyd's father passed away. James Lloyd Escue died January 21, 1973. Lloyd was now officially in a role he had assumed years before his father's death.

AEA week in March, the family made a trip to Disney World and took Rose and Linda along. Rose thought it was great to get to see the place with two of her children, and all of her grandchildren. Melvin was not among them because he was still at college. During his spring break Melvin drove up to Birmingham and worked at Birmingham Communications pulling radios out of vehicles and reinstalling them after they were repaired. He finished at Faulkner that semester and then became an Auburn Tiger in the fall. He had worked so hard to get there and there he was.

Lloyd and Bernice and the kids had been members of the Ridgecrest Baptist Church in the Center Point area for most of the time they had lived there. In 1973 they left that church and became involved in a Bible Study that really was in depth. The kids went to it as well. The kids also became members of a swim team.

Telpage Ltd was formed in October of 1973. This venture was formed with H.B. Lee as a partner and it offered paging and mobile phone service in the Huntsville area. It also operated some mobile phone channels in the Birmingham area.

During 1974 the family enjoyed a full summer of fishing, picnicking, a trip to Silverhill and a trip to Kentucky, by way of Nashville with a stop at Opryland. Sherry won eleven gold medals for swimming and set six records for the city and came in 7th place in the state. Mike brought home three medals of his own and was awarded the most improved swimmer award on the team. Both Sherry and Mike were back in the public schools at the start of the school year. Sherry was a freshman at Huffman High School and Mike was in the 7th grade at L.M. Smith Elementary School. When he transferred from the private school, they moved him up a grade because he tested so high. Mike's school was only two blocks from the house. Bernice wrote to her grandparents in September and said that they had Birmingham Communications for sale. Lloyd was taking a lot more time off from work and the family was doing a lot of things together. They had trips already planned to Chicago the next month, Atlanta in November, and Hawaii in 1976.

In October of 1974, an incident happened that illustrates very well just what kind of people that Lloyd and Bernice Escue were. One of the people that attended the Bible Study that they attended was in the U.S. Air Force, stationed in St. Louis, Missouri. He was temporarily assigned to the Birmingham Airport, working on a special project, from January 1973 until September 1974. Shortly after moving back to St. Louis, he found out his mother had been stricken with cancer. She lived with her mother in Winnsboro, Louisiana. He and Lloyd had become very good friends during the time he was in Birmingham, through the bible study and through both of their interest in aviation. His name was Bill Young. Bill got an emergency leave and drove to Louisiana to see his mother and to find out first hand what could be done. Her doctors said she would not last until Christmas. Bill turned to the circle of friends he had in the bible study back in Birmingham for prayer and wisdom in just how to handle this situation. Since the doctors gave no hope, he decided to try a treatment for his mother that was available in Birmingham that he learned about from some of the members of the bible study. He needed a place for his mother to stay there, someone to stay with her, and a way to get her there with her situation. Among the circle of friends there; an apartment was found that could be rented on a short term basis, Bernice was able to borrow some furniture for the apartment from Evelyn Mackenzie, the same friend that helped them out when they first came to Birmingham. Bill found a nurse who could administer the treatments at the apartment so everything was worked out except for getting her from Louisiana to Birmingham.

Bill's mother was in very bad shape and one of the considerations was whether or not she could even make the trip. He talked with her about the situation and she said she wanted to try to make it no matter what the outcome was. She would have to be flown so Lloyd arranged to rent an airplane that had a stretcher in it. The day before she was to be moved, Bill drove his aunt, who was his mother's sister-in-law to Birmingham. They arrived late in the evening and stayed with Lloyd and Bernice at their Goldenrod home. The next morning Lloyd and Bill flew the plane, a Piper Cherokee Six, to Winnsboro, Louisiana to pick up Bill's mother and Bill's sister, who would sit in the back to comfort and take care of her mother during the flight. Note one thing here. Neither of the two women in the rear of the airplane liked flying in airplanes of any size, let alone a small one such as this. The trip was made without any problems with the patient, although the crew made a big blunder at the controls while still on the ground in Winnsboro that would have alarmed any passenger, no matter how much they enjoyed flying.

When they arrived at the airport in Birmingham, there was the circle of Christian friends waiting to do their part in providing comfort to this lady, Christine, who was in such terrible shape physically. She was transported by an ambulance that Bernice had arranged and set up in the apartment where treatments were started immediately. Bill and his sister stayed a day and then had to leave. Aunt Lois stayed to take care of the patient until she improved to the point that she could be moved to Bill's home in St. Louis.

A few weeks later, Bill drove his wife, Shirley, down to Birmingham and she replaced his aunt as the person administering care to his mother. Bill then drove his aunt back to her home that was in Vidalia, Louisiana and then he returned to St. Louis. After his arrival there, Lloyd was airborne again, in the same airplane, flying Bill's wife and mother to St. Louis. The other pilot along on this trip was Billy Hinds, the manager of Birmingham Communications. This was the first meeting of Bill and Billy but would not be the last. Christine Young was a different lady on that day compared to the day she was flown to Birmingham. The Lord had done some marvelous things over the past weeks and Lloyd and Bernice Escue were His main instruments.

Linda got married in November 1974 in Birmingham. She and her husband, Danny Myers, spent Christmas with the Escues in Birmingham. Mike got a weight lifting set for Christmas and Danny was showing him the proper way to work with the weights to avoid hurting himself. Danny ended up spraining his own shoulder muscles in the process. The pain was so bad the Myers had to delay their trip down to Silverhill after Christmas. Mike to this day has never injured himself lifting weights as a result of this training. Danny was a graduate of Troy State University but his degree was in Psychology and Social Science, not weight lifting. Realizing from this incident that he was not yet done with his education, Danny went on to earn a masters degree in Counseling in August 1975.

April 15,1975, Lloyd and Bernice bought a new home in Birmingham. This home was located at 1108 Jacque Circle, in the Roebuck area. The new home had four bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, two dens, a living room, dining room, a kitchen with eating area, recreation room, and laundry room. The living area was 4000 square feet. Not a bad buy for $57,000.00.

When the kids were out of school for AEA Week, the family went on a trip to St. Louis to visit the Bill Young family. His mother was in the hospital at the time and they went there to see her in the middle of a huge snowstorm. She was so happy to get to see the Escues once more.

Lloyd's brother, Alvin, was now working at a lumber mill in Monroeville, Alabama. Melvin had worked at times at a similar mill in South Carolina when Alvin was there and had gained a lot of experience in that line of work. He started working at the mill in Monroeville during the summer when he was out of school at Auburn. He was making $3.50 an hour and working 60 hours a week.

When football season started this year, Alabama opened their season hosting the University of Missouri. Bill Young came to Birmingham with four tickets to the game and invited Lloyd and Bernice to go. This was the first Alabama game Bernice had ever been to. Alabama was heavily favored so Bill took a lot of razzing from the fans. The game ended with Missouri beating Alabama soundly. Bill was a lifelong college football fan and really enjoyed the spirit of the Alabama fans. He was retiring from the Air Force the following year so Lloyd invited him to stay with them while seeking employment opportunities there in Birmingham.

September 1975 Micker's oldest daughter, Carolyn, was married and Sherry was one of the servers at the reception. This was just a week before her 15th birthday. In October Lloyd and Bernice flew in their Beechcraft to Toronto in Canada for a convention associated with the Radio Common Carriers. The industry had a national trade organization called Telocator.

Towards the end of the year in 1975, Lloyd and Bernice sold Birmingham Communications and Shelby Communications and were in the process of selling Montgomery and Tuscaloosa Communications. These businesses were more of a headache than the paging business and selling them was the right move to be able to concentrate on expanding the paging network in Alabama. Billy Hinds and Ken Campbell were the buyers of these two companies. The portable shop was kept because it served as a repair facility for Telpage's pagers as well as pagers from other companies. Telpage, Inc. and Telpage Ltd moved their operations to office space located at 11 Oxmoor Road in the Homewood area of Birmingham.

With these companies gone, Bernice was able to have more hours she could call her own. She only had to go to the office one or two days a week now. Both of the kids were swimming year around now. During the school year, they practiced at the pool at Jefferson State Junior College. Bernice had to pick them up after school and get them there and then pick them up after practice. In the summer when they were out of school, she had to get them to practice at the YMCA every weekday morning by 6:00AM. A letter Bernice wrote to her grandparents in December, bringing them up to date on all the happenings of the year, mentioned that Sherry was swimming 100 yards in one minute flat. Sherry was in the 10th grade and Mike in the 8th grade. Both were making very good grades. Just the kind of news grandparents like to hear for some reason.

Grandpa Kucera's birthday comes early in the year so Bernice was wishing him a happy birthday in a letter written the day after Christmas in 1975. She had spoken with him on the phone Christmas Eve. The family had just flown home that day from Silverhill so she was able to fill him in on all of the family news from down that way. Five pages worth anyway. A tornado hit Silverhill on Christmas day. The phone lines were out to the Foukal's place but Bernice was able to get the Brumfield's home for a damage report. The storm took the roof off of the chicken house and took out the windmill. Neither of those structures was in use any longer so they felt pretty lucky. Sherry had her drivers permit and was counting down to her 16th birthday. Mike had reached five foot four inches in height and weighed 100 pounds. We all know now that he was just getting started. Her letter contained these two sentences." It is wonderful to have a smart husband that makes a good living and doesn't have to work hard anymore. We have really been fortunate". Lloyd himself was heard to say several times when someone would say how "lucky" he had been in business; "yes I have, and I found that the harder I worked, the luckier I got".

Rose had been with Vanity Fair for ten years now and had a three week paid vacation each year. She had been planning to go to Idaho but since she had been there for her dad's funeral and saw everybody, she decided not to go.

Joseph Kucera celebrated his 87th birthday on January 3, 1976. Rose wrote to her folks February 1st and remarked, you don't know how happy we are you are still doing so well with health and all. She sent along pictures that were made of all the family at Christmas and of the damage from the tornado. Her dad died peacefully on the couch at his home in Buhl, March 27, 1976. Bernice flew out to San Francisco and awaited the arrival of her mother. From there they went on to Buhl together. The funeral was held on Tuesday and Bernice stayed until the following Saturday. Rose stayed in San Francisco awhile, visiting with Lydia, on her way back and did not return to Silverhill until April 11th. The large turnout for Joseph's funeral was a testimony of how well thought of he was in Buhl. The weeping at the funeral by family members was more for those left behind that for him. Rose's dad meant a lot to her as evidenced by things she wrote about him in future years. Much of what she wrote is the source for many of the things this book has to say about her father. She wrote to her mother on April 18th expressing her love and hope that she was adjusting to the new way of life that she was now in. Her mom wrote back April 23rd saying that she was doing pretty well and all of the family was being very supportive to her. She missed Joseph more in the evenings when they would be reading the paper and listening to the radio or playing records. She said she just didn't even play the records now because it constantly reminded her of "daddy". Mary enclosed a check to Rose for her share of her father's life insurance. The letter closed with some advice on what she should do with the money.

Melvin graduated from Auburn University in March 1976. Rose wrote a letter to her mom May 3rd and mentions that he had a serious romance going. In June he went back to work for the lumber company in Monroeville where he had worked the previous summer. His job title was a quality control engineer.

September 11th Sherry Escue turned sixteen. Her folks had gotten her a car for her birthday so she was ready for that drivers license. The only problem was Lloyd and Bernice were on a trip to Hawaii at the time. Bill Young had moved from St. Louis back to Birmingham after retiring from the Air Force and bought a home in the Roebuck area, fairly close to where the Escues lived. When Lloyd and Bernice left, they gave Bill a pager to carry in case Sherry or Mike had some emergency come up. In Sherry's mind, this drivers license matter on her birthday was an emergency. She beeped Bill and he took her to get her license.

Lloyd bought a part ownership in an airplane called a Citabria in 1976. The name comes from the word "airbatic" spelled backwards. The plane was a single engine tail dragger and used for stunt flying. It was a good airplane to learn to fly in and it was hoped that Mike would give flying a try someday. Lloyd hired a technician from Motorola that was qualified to maintain all of the new equipment being used. This man was a pilot so he used the Citabria to make service calls when he needed to respond quickly. The company used to sponsor a picnic for the employees each summer and the place where it was held had a grass landing strip. Lloyd would take anyone who wanted to fly in the Citabria up for a ride.

With the plan to expand the paging network all over Alabama still at work, Lloyd entered into a deal to buy some radio channels in Birmingham from the GE radio dealership. These channels would be used for mobile telephone service. A partnership was formed and H.B. Lee was included as one of the partners. The partnership also acquired the rights to page and provide mobile telephone service in Huntsville.

Christmas the kids all went together and got Walter and Rose a color television set. Rose told her mother that they really enjoyed it. She thought they were getting them a new vacuum cleaner. Thus ended a year that had sad times and happy times.

In 1977 Lloyd and Bernice and the kids went to San Francisco in July to visit with Lydia. They had a great time sightseeing during their short stay. Thanksgiving, Rose's mother, her sister Lydia, her niece Jan and her nephew Larry came for a sort of family reunion. It was a big time and all of the family got to spend time together. At Christmas time Lloyd and Bernice, Sherry and Mike were up in Kentucky visiting with Lloyd's family and Danny and Linda spent Christmas with his family. It was the last Christmas for Lloyd's mother. She died in March of 1978.

The week after Lloyd's mothers death was AEA Week. Sherry and a girl friend drove down to Gulf Shores, spending the days at the beach and staying with her grandparents in Silverhill at night. Lloyd and Mike went on a canoe and camping trip to Florida with some other boys and their dads. They went in a camper. Bernice came down to Silverhill in the middle of the week with Linda.

May 13, 1978 Sherry Lynn Escue became a high school graduate. A week following that event, a letter arrives in Silverhill from Selma, Alabama. This letter is from Doris Bryson, the mother of Bonnie Gail Bryson. Gail is the girl that Melvin has been so serious about for sometime now. She was inviting the Foukal family up to Selma to meet Gail's family before the coming marriage of the couple. One particular paragraph of that letter bears repeating here. I hope you all will be happy with Melvin's choice and I hope Gail will live up to your expectations. I've told Melvin she is a spoiled brat. She's the baby in every way except years and she wants it that way. No one knows a daughter like her own mother. The wedding took place in July 1978 and the Gail Foukal we know must not be the same person as the Gail Bryson as described in that letter. All of the three Foukal kids were married now.

Right about this time, Telpage took a bold step up, acquiring a Radio Common Carrier in Nashville, Tennessee. Lloyd and Bernice had met two men named Bill Featherengill and Bill Acker who were partners in a company called Private Capital. They worked out the deal to buy the carrier and were partners in the deal themselves. They called this new corporation, Telpage of Tennessee. It operated several locations in Tennessee from Nashville to Chattanooga, and in Dalton, Georgia as well. It more than doubled the size of Telpage.

After her graduation, Sherry worked in the Telpage office until she enrolled at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB)in the fall. She had a boyfriend at this time named Jabe Brewer.

During 1978 Lloyd and Bernice were supporting a man named Jim Martin, a Republican from Gadsden, Alabama, in an election for the U.S. Senate. Lloyd allowed the Martin campaign to use the Beech Travelair on condition that they use only pilots from a list of pilots that were qualified in the plane that he supplied them. Since he lost the use of the plane for a time, he looked in to the possibility of buying another plane that had performance similar to the Travelair, but operated at less cost. He located a single engine Beechcraft Bonanza that was just what he was looking for right there in Birmingham. The plane was for sale so he went looking for others that might have an interest in part ownership. Billy Hinds agreed to be a partner as long as financing could be arranged reasonably. Bill Young now worked for Motorola there and was also interested. They got suitable financing from the bank and Bill Young loaned both Lloyd and Billy the money for their part of the down payment. Lloyd still had one problem that had him grounded. With his history of a heart problem, he had to get a wavier on his license every year with the FAA and he had not done it yet this year. Any place he had to go he had to get one of the two other owners to fly him. Bill Young's job with Motorola was with the RCC market and his biggest customer by far was Telpage. It wasn't very hard for Lloyd to convince him to be the pilot if he had to go someplace on business.

A very sad and disastrous thing occurred in the heat of the Jim Martin Senatorial Campaign. Despite the agreement that Lloyd had with the campaign on the use of the Travelair, they used it on a flight with a pilot that was not on the list of approved pilots. The plane was carrying the pilot and three passengers when it crashed while attempting to land in Huntsville. The pilot, being unfamiliar with the plane, failed to switch fuel tanks properly and allowed the plane to run out of fuel while he was on approach to land. All of the occupants were killed. This was a case of the generosity of this man being badly abused. It would get even worse down the road.

Up to this time, mobile phones were confined to vehicles. Lloyd had a vision of handheld phones operating, first in Birmingham, and then all over the Telpage system where they had radio channels available. They would operate in the UHF band, where the present mobile phones were operating in the VHF band. He looked to Motorola to supply the radio equipment for this but Motorola had to be convinced there was enough demand before they would commit to manufacture them. You see Motorola was developing Cellular Phones at that time but could not divulge any information about it as yet. Lloyd also had to locate a company that would produce a terminal that would interface the radio portion of the system with the land lines of the telephone company.

He set out first to a company in the Dallas area looking at a terminal. He and the man who was the general manager at Telpage, Bob Minton, where flown to Dallas on August 9th by who else, Bill Young. Then on August 15th the same three flew to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where the Motorola plant was located that would manufacture the radios. They must have gotten their way because shortly after their return to Birmingham, Motorola accepted an order to deliver a large number of these portables.

One of the missing links in trying to expand the Telpage network over all of Alabama was Mobile. One of the two radio common carriers operating in Mobile was a customer of Bill Young and he had been trying to buy them out himself since inheriting a large sum of money back in July. Lloyd talked him in to trying once again in October so he flew the Citabria down on Friday October 6th to meet with the owners. The next morning, before he could meet with them, he got a call from home that his uncle had died in Vidalia, Louisiana. He had to leave and head back to Birmingham without finishing the meeting.

All of the family was in Silverhill for Thanksgiving. At this stage, that was a lot of people but there will be more. Gail fit in perfectly with the rest of the Foukal bunch. Six foot Mike was driving the family car when they arrived. He bagged his usual number of squirrels while hunting and had a swimming trophy waiting for him when he would be attending a sports banquet with his parents the following week back home.

Lloyd and Bernice held a Christmas party for all of the Telpage employees in their home in 1978. This was some party with over 50 guests. It was a catered affair and could not have been nicer. All of the employees at Telpage were always treated like family. One thing about the party that will never be forgotten. They got twelve people together to sing the song, The 12 Days of Christmas. They drew numbers to see who sang which of the 12 days. Lloyd drew the part with the highest notes, "five golden rings".

Lloyd and Bernice wanted to own the building where they operated Telpage so they began looking for some land to purchase where they could build. The only land they could find that was reasonable in price was in the Woodlawn area. They purchased two parcels of land at the corner of First Avenue North and 60th Street and built a facility in 1979 that housed the corporate, administration, sales and marketing, and technical operations of the company. One of it's unique features was a drive up window where a customer who needed service on a pager could drive up and get instant service. An open house was held July 15, 1979. The building had special cooling in rooms for a new computer system and the terminals that controlled the paging and mobile telephone systems. Bernice was developing a computerized system to handle all of the accounts payable and receivable matters, plus an inventory system of all of the equipment that was leased in all of the locations. This was a huge task but one that had to be done to handle the growth that was coming in the company.

The relationship that Sherry had going with Jabe Brewer was getting more serious in 1979. Lloyd offered Jabe a job with Telpage and he took him up on it. The big opportunities in sales were in the Nashville market so that is where they sent him. John Orman was the manager up there and he was the perfect man to train under.

After her father died, Rose wrote to her mother quite often telling her what a wonderful mother she had been to her. It was like she regretted that she had not done the same with her father before she lost him. Rose certainly learned about being a wonderful parent from someone. If she were here today she would probably give the Lord a good bit of credit. She wrote one of these letters September 2, 1979. Here is a portion of what she wrote:

         I know you and I too wish we could have done more for our kids when they were growing up but we must have done something right as they all turned good with no major problems.

         I think of the times when you picked berries to give me music lessons and tried so hard to give me all the advantages. You always wanted your kids to have the best and be the best.

September 12, 1979 Hurricane Fredrick struck the Gulf Coast. Baldwin and Mobile Counties were hit very hard, in fact the beach areas in Baldwin County were nearly wiped out. The families of the passengers that had been killed in the Travelair crash in 1978 had filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Mobile which was their home. Lloyd was named as a defendant in the lawsuit because of being the owner of the airplane. Alabama law allows the owner of any vehicle to be held responsible for the operation of the vehicle, even if the owner is not operating the vehicle. Lloyd and Bernice's lawyer in Birmingham was a man named Ken Wallis. This case was beyond his expertise so a lawyer in Mobile had been retained to handle the case for Lloyd. Shortly after the hurricane, Lloyd and Ken Wallis had to go to Mobile to work on the case with the attorney down there. Lloyd was unable to fly at the time so he asked Bill Young to fly them down. Bernice went along also so she could check on her folks place in Silverhill. Bill landed the plane at Brookley Airfield, which was closer to downtown than the main airport. Lloyd and Ken got out there and then Bill and Bernice took off towards Silverhill to fly around the area surveying the damage from the air. Bernice had called her dad and told him to listen for the plane and then come to the Fairhope Airport to pick them up when he looked up and saw them flying low. He picked them up when they landed and Bernice got to see first hand what all had happened. It was pretty bad but would have been a lot worse if they had lived closer to the Gulf. At the arranged time they flew back to Brookley to pick up Lloyd and Ken Wallis.

Things were back to normal by Thanksgiving and Rose hosted the entire family for Thanksgiving with lots of her baked goodies. There was a new dining room table that seated twelve in the dining room now. The Escues stayed from Wednesday till Sunday. The Myers came in second, leaving on Saturday. The Foukals came in last with Melvin having to get back to work on Friday. Linda had something different about her. It was like she was carrying a basketball in front of her. Danny and Linda increased the size of their family by one in March 1978 with the birth of a daughter, Rebecca.

The market for paging was growing rapidly everywhere. All was going very well except in Birmingham. Up until now, Telpage had been the only company offering reliable wide area paging covering the greater Birmingham area. That was now no longer the case. A new company had been formed called American Mobilphone and they were out to steal every Telpage customer they could get their hands on, by hook or crook. them. Telpage went all out in an effort to protect it's customer base but it was a tough battle.

In May of 1980, the company held a weekend event for the sales force in the Birmingham office to show it's appreciation for the effort they had put forth in the battle to retain the long time customers. Lloyd had bought a new twin-engine airplane to replace the one lost in the 1978 crash. This one was a Piper Aerostar, a real sleek, and fast twin. He flew a plane load of personnel, including Bernice, in the Aerostar to Panama City. Bill Young flew the rest of the people in the Bonanza. They had rented condos at a place on the beach there and Bill had arranged with the RCC owner there in Panama City, who was one of his customers also, to host the group. It was an easy sell for Bill because the man was dying to meet Lloyd Escue. They had a fun time and all flew back to Birmingham on Sunday.

The relationship between Sherry and Jabe had come to the point now that a wedding date was set for September. He was still working in Nashville and Sherry had finished her second year at UAB, studying nursing.

Lloyd and Bernice talked often about selling out of the RCC's. They had been working very hard for thirteen years and the Alabama end of the business was estimated to be worth at least $2,000.000.00 now. Instead of putting it up for sale, Lloyd starts working on a deal to purchase RCC of Virginia. This acquisition would all but double the business again. Sounded like a lot more work to Bernice and she was not at all for it. She felt they had all they needed but she had always been supportive, no matter what. The deal was getting very close to becoming a reality. Lloyd was on the national board of directors of Telocator and was hoping that it would be finalized before the national convention in Las Vegas, coming up in October.

The state RCC association had a meeting down at Lake Martin in August. Lloyd flew the Bonanza down with Bernice for the meeting and Bill Young picked them up at the airport. Bill had his car because he had traveled up from Dothan after seeing one of his customers. When the meeting was over, Bill took them back to the plane and they flew back to Birmingham. When pre-flighting the plane before takeoff, Lloyd and Bill noticed an oil leak in the engine. Lloyd said he would get it checked when he got to Birmingham. The source of the oil leak turned out to be a crack in the crankcase of the engine so the airplane could not be flown until the engine was replaced. That would have cost $10,000 at a minimum so Lloyd, Billy and Bill decided to sell the plane as is and start looking for a newer replacement since is was a 1965 model. They sold it with no problem because it was in great shape other than needing a new engine.

Tuesday, September 2nd was election day. Lloyd had been assisting Billy Joe Camp in his bid for election to the Public Service Commission in Alabama. Today would be the day of victory hopefully. Lloyd had to fly up to Chattanooga to handle a financial matter at a bank so he voted early and departed. He stopped for gas at the Chevron station in Roebuck where he always bought his gas. He encouraged all of the attendants to get to the polls while he was there and engaged in his usual conversations with the owner before leaving for the airport. He was making the flight alone although he had asked both Billy Hinds and Bill Young to go with him that day and neither of them were able to go. He flew up to Chattanooga and was met at the airport by Sherry Williams, the local Telpage manager there. After he took care of the business he went to the local office to pay a visit and then Sherry took him back to the airport for his departure for Birmingham. Lloyd took off for Birmingham but never arrived. His plane crashed just west of Summerville, Georgia. Bernice received a telephone call from the Georgia Highway Patrol early that evening with the news that Lloyd was dead.

A little later that evening, Bill Young called the Escue home to speak with Lloyd. The phone was answered by Leah Martin, a long time friend of the Escues. She told Bill the sad news and he rushed over to the house to be of whatever service he could.

The next morning, Bill Young and Billy Hinds drove up to where the plane had crashed to see firsthand what had happened. Everything was still just as it happened, awaiting the flight safety crash investigation to be completed. They looked around the scene trying to get a vision of what had happened. Bill right away felt that Lloyd was trying to regain control of the plane when it hit the ground because of the way it came into the trees. While he was there he spotted a gold Cross pencil that Lloyd would always use when trying to illustrate a point or plan when talking with someone. He picked it up and took it with him and later left it at the Escue home for Mike.

Bernice asked Bill to contact men she would like to have serve as pallbearers for the funeral and he did so. Among the men who served was former Governor George Wallace. He was confined to a wheelchair and was positioned in the aisle, right down front during the service. When "Dixie" was played and sung, tears streamed down the governor's face. Lloyd was characterized throughout the service as a true southern gentleman. That is how anyone who knew him will always remember him. Bernice had lost her husband of over 22 years and Sherry and Mike had lost their father. Many had lost a true friend.

Seventeen-year-old Mike had graduated from Huffman High School that year and just a week or so before his father's death he had enrolled at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. What a tragedy for this to happen at such a time. Sherry was scheduled to marry Jabe Brewer just a little over a week from the day of the funeral. The general manager at Telpage, Bob Minton, had resigned his position, effective September 5th, the day of the funeral.