Commonwealth Chronicle

A 2009 anonymous health survey given to Washington and Lee undergraduates shows that about 18 percent of female respondents have experienced rape or attempted rape. That’s two times the national college average for sexual assault, says Dr. Jane Horton, Washington and Lee’s director of student health. The report shows that 39 percent of undergraduate women attending Washington and Lee responded to the survey- 341 women in total.

“We feel comfortable that our survey is representative of our students’ experience here,” said Horton.

Commonwealth Chronicle reporter Cameron Steele takes an in-depth look at sexual assault at Washington and Lee as part of an on-going investigation about gender relations on local college campuses. To watch the package and hear Steele speak on the Rockbridge Report broadcast about her in-depth series about gender relations and sexual assault at local colleges, click the video below.

In case you didn’t scroll all the way to the bottom of our previous story, here’s the Chronicle’s 10-minute video interview with former NYTer Jayson Blair. He says he has finally forgiven himself for his transgressions while working at the Times – have you?

By Becky Bratu and Cameron Steele

The sun streamed through the room’s large glass windows, lighting the weary faces of Washington and Lee University students, professional journalists, academics and notorious former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair. The crunching sound of chips accompanied Washington and Lee professor Dayo Abah’s talk about media law over a lunch of boxed sandwiches and salads. As the participants of the university’s 48th Journalism Ethics Institute finished the last of their Italian paninis and cobb salads, Abah began to explain false light – a privacy tort similar to libel.

Unless someone is crazy, he’s not going to write a false story about someone else, Abah said. An awkward moment of silence followed her words as most of the 20 people in the room glanced at Blair.

“Oh, and I’m not talking about Jayson [Blair],” Abah added with a nervous laugh.

Blair laughed, and others in the room followed suit. Students shook their heads, making eye contact with each other. As the Ethics Institute neared its end, the feeling that Jayson Blair was the elephant in the room still lingered.

“I’m sorry, Jayson,” Abah said. Blair waved his arms in the air and laughed again, dismissing her apology.

But Blair himself was not forgiven so easily. Blair left the Times in shame after a 2003 investigation uncovered that he had plagiarized and fabricated major elements of his stories. In August, the plagiarist-turned-life-coach agreed to give a public speech as the keynoter for the institute – a two-day event during which journalism students, professors and professionals discuss ethical dilemmas facing the news media. Blair’s public speech read like a 20-minute-long apology.

And forgiveness didn’t seem to follow. Not after Friday night’s speech to about 150 people, and not after the last of the institute’s two private sessions concluded Saturday morning. Still, Edward Wasserman, the Knight Professor of journalism ethics who first asked Blair to W&L, said he was happy with Blair’s performance at the institute.

“I was pleased with the turn-out,” Wasserman said. “I was worried about it.”

In an exclusive interview with the Commonwealth Chronicle, Blair said when Wasserman first contacted him in August, he saw speaking at W&L as an opportunity to permanently close a scandalous chapter of his life.

“I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve forgiven myself for what I did,” said Blair. “I just needed an opportunity to do something good and for something good to come out of my actions.”

The Institute

Since the mid-1990s, W&L’s Journalism Ethics Institute has been the centerpiece for the capstone journalism ethics course. Twice a year, junior and senior journalism majors get the chance to talk to professors and outside media professionals in seminar settings, where the participants discuss real-life ethical cases. Wasserman, who’s led the institute since he came to W&L six years ago, divides these cases into temptations and dilemmas. While the former category deals with clear-cut decisions between wrong and right, the latter poses more challenges, as practicing journalists try to balance out personal and professional obligations.

Wasserman said it’s his goal to transform the institute seminars into “a kind of Socratic garden.” Inviting Blair to participate in the conference was a huge departure for the program, said Wasserman.

“The idea seems absurd of Jayson Blair keynoting an ethics institute, but it’s an opportunity for students to confront a key figure in a major ethical scandal,” he said.

This year, Wasserman invited seven other journalism professionals and academics to join Blair at the institute. They included: Caesar Andrews, former editor of The Detroit Free Press and Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor in Journalism at W&L; Jon Carras, producer, CBS Sunday Morning; Michael Getler, ombudsman, PBS News; Arlene Morgan, associate dean at Columbia University School of Journalism; John Watson, associate professor in the American University School of Communication; Reed Williams, reporter with the Richmond Times-Dispatch; and Corinna Zarek, Freedom of Information Director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

About 30 people filled the cozily furnished room on Friday afternoon, taking seats to form a large, misshapen circle as Wasserman welcomed participants to the institute. Sitting next to a table laden with cookies, coffee, water and soda cans, Blair seemed a bit uncomfortable. He wore a burnt-orange zip-up sweater, gray pants and brown shoes – a casual look among the suit-clad crowd. Personal introductions followed, then Jon Carras kicked off the first seminar discussion with a case study about celebrity gossip website TMZ’s breaking news coverage of Michael Jackson’s death this summer.

“How did TMZ get the biggest scoop of its short, four-year history?” Carras asked in his case study hand-out. “Should ‘old’ media have reported the story based solely on TMZ’s report?”

A couple students glanced sideways at Blair, who sat quietly as he leaned an elbow onto the table beside him. Arlene Morgan broke the silence, beginning what was to be a heated, two-day debate between students and professionals about various ethical dilemmas.

“The last I heard, journalism was supposed to be based on facts,” Arlene Morgan said, and a few more students shot looks in Blair’s direction.

The case studies

TMZ was the first outlet to report Michael Jackson’s death, beating the Los Angeles Times, NBC, CNN and others by an hour, said Carras in his case study. The conversation that ensued focused on “new” media standards and practices, and the seemingly unfair competition between traditional and new media to break a story first. The speed versus accuracy debate proved foreboding. In his public speech later that afternoon, Blair talked about the pressure felt in a stretched and fatigued Times newsroom after 9/11.

“Somewhere along the way, on my way of climbing upwards, I lost sight of the very reason I entered journalism,” Blair said in his speech.

When Morgan presented the second case after a snack break and an hour of discussion, Blair appeared relaxed and comfortable enough to take part in the debate. Morgan’s case reviewed a short documentary showcasing the life of an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who died in Iraq and was hailed by many as a hero. The case raised issues about the use of language, racial and ethnic descriptions when telling LCpl. Gutierrez’s story.

While some students and professionals questioned CBS’ decision not to interview Gutierrez’s Guatemalan sister, Blair said he thought the piece had an “authentic voice.”

“It’s genuine. It has perspective, depth of reporting,” he said. “No story is flawless.”

Blair’s eager, constant involvement in the discussion hearkened back to his glory days as a student journalist at the University of Maryland, when many admired his “endless energy” and “daunting drive.” (Read about Blair’s college experience here)

As sunlight softened to the gray of Lexington afternoons, the first of the institute’s seminars drew to a close. Wasserman, Blair and the other insitute participants ended the private debate and moved to the university’s Stackhouse Theater. Once there, the journalism students snagged seats that had been reserved for them in the two front rows of the theater. Blair later announced that his speech in front of about 150 people was the last public address about his career at the Times.

In his introduction of Blair, Wasserman enumerated some of the media statements critical of the keynoter. Seemingly amused from his seat in the front left corner of the room, Blair chuckled at the many examples of media outrage, but his face turned blank as Wasserman read the laundry list of Blair’s transgressions at the Times. Visibly nervous for the first time since his arrival on the W&L campus, Blair took the stage as the C-SPAN television crew shone its bright lights in his direction.

A public apology

Blair’s speech seemed sincere.

“I am at peace with the knowledge that there is no one or nothing to blame for my troubles but myself,” he said. “I am here because of the choices I made.”  His voice shook. He stopped often to clear his throat and adjust his glasses as he read the prepared speech from a lectern.

Blair told the audience he wanted to become a journalist because of his curious nature, his love for writing and his desire to help people. After a series of summer internships, he said he became convinced that he needed to work at the best paper on the best beat to make the most impact on people’s lives. For Blair, that paper was the New York Times. But his many lies and fabrications ended up hurting, not helping people.

“For me, as a human being, the hardest part is the personal part… my friends, reporters and editors, who felt betrayed, and then the subjects of the stories,” he said in response to the first question from a journalism student after he finished the 20 minute speech. But Blair said that while he was lying, he never considered the harm he was doing. That, he said, was largely a result of his character flaws, mental health issues and drug and alcohol abuse.

For an hour afterwards, Blair answered questions from other students, journalists and academics. He appeared more comfortable answering questions than he did during his prepared address, despite his tendency to shift weight from one foot to the other and switch positions from standing to sitting on the center-stage stool provided for him.

In his conclusion, Blair said he believed he was a valuable addition to the ethics institute because he was an example of how good people could do bad things, thanks to bad choices made in “baby steps.”

“We can learn the most from the worst practices,” he said. ” If we merely believe that only bad people do bad things, then you good people have no reason to learn ethics at all, for you are destined to do good no matter what happens.”

But legal reporting professor Toni Locy said she didn’t buy the “baby steps” scenario. Locy, who had worked at USA Today during a similar scandal involving scorned reporter Jack Kelley, shot Blair a few pointed questions.

“Why didn’t you stop?” she asked.

“I was immature,” Blair said. He went on, explaining how lying “is like erosion, slowly compromising you.” But Locy wasn’t finished. She wanted to know if Blair had made amends with some of the people he had written lies about.

“Did you apologize?” Locy asked. “Did you say ‘I’m sorry’?” she asked again, when Blair refused to answer. He claimed he couldn’t answer because his conversations with his sources were private.

An on-camera interview: sincere or scheming?

That Saturday was warm for November. W&L’s red brick buildings seemed to gleam against the blue backdrop of mountains and sky. Almost finished with his weekend visit, Blair walked into Reid Hall, fondly called the “J-school” by journalism majors. A senior journalism major, and the two Commonwealth Chronicle reporters led the way for Blair.

High heels clicking, the women towered over Blair, who had agreed to exclusive interviews for the Rockbridge Report, W&L’s student-produced Web site and television show, and the Commonwealth Chronicle. Small talk about the weather, coffee and the building itself made the climb of four flights of stairs to the television studio more bearable.

Once inside the studio, the student journalist and Blair continued chatting, as the Chronicle reporters checked microphones and cameras.

Blair acted jovial and calm, cracking jokes and inquiring about W&L’s journalism program. When he saw the teleprompters set up in front of the studio set, he asked with a grin if his scripted answers would appear on it. The RR reporter chuckled. Blair told the slightly nervous student that younger journalists or journalism students usually ask him the most painful or thought-provoking questions.

The more experienced journalists seem to just yap in outrage, Blair said, as he parodied those journalists in a suddenly high-pitched voice. Blair laughed at his joke, and the young woman joined in.

But as the cameras started recording, the mood turned sober. Blair talked about growing up in Columbia, Md., an integrating community that, he said, gave him ideals, taught him values and fueled his first interest in journalism. He then spoke about two Washington Post articles that, in his teenage years, showed him the healing power of journalism. Blair said that both these stories – one about a high school friend who was murdered and the other about an anorexic girl who had been denied help from her health insurance provider – had “cathartic power.”

After that, Blair said, he was hooked on a journalism career.

“I thought I could combine my curiousity with my natural interest in writing with something that could help people,” he said.

But as the Rockbridge Reporter pressed him further about his plagiarism and fabrication while at the Times, Blair conceded that he shouldn’t have been a journalist.

“I probably would not have gone into the profession if I had known the problems that were going to plague me from within.”

When the interview finished, Blair’s somber face turned up into a grin as he congratulated the student reporter on her on-camera presence. You’re a natural, he told her. As Commonwealth Chronicle reporter Cameron Steele took the student’s seat, Blair commented on her stiletto boots.

He said he would’ve liked to throw one of the high heels at Toni Locy’s head when she interrogated him after his speech the night before. After a pause, Blair continued.

“She probably wanted to throw one at me.”

 

To watch the Commonwealth Chronicle interview that followed, click on the video above.

Cameron and I will have exclusive access to all of the Institute sessions, not only to Jayson Blair’s public address.

For up-to-the-minute updates, follow us on Twitter.

Follow Becky Bratu here. Follow Cameron Steele here.

By Becky Bratu and Cameron Steele

To the dismay of some online media outlets, former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair is the keynote speaker for Washington and Lee University’s upcoming 48th Journalism Ethics Institute.

Mediaite and The Wall Street Journal are only two of the media organizations that found the news hard to believe. (Click titles for links to stories.)

In 2003, Blair resigned in shame from the Times after an investigation uncovered he had fabricated and plagiarized major elements of his stories. But, while most journalists see lies, scandal and compromised journalistic integrity when they see Blair’s name, W&L’s Knight Professor of journalism ethics sees a learning opportunity for his students.

In August, Edward Wasserman read a profile of  Blair in The Washington Post.

“He sounded interesting [in the Washington Post profile], like he might have some perspective on the scandal,” Wasserman said. “And he lives right up the road.”

Wasserman e-mailed Blair later that week to invite him to the Journalism Ethics Institute, a two-day event during which journalism students, professors and more than a dozen journalism professionals discuss ethical dilemmas facing the news media.

As the keynote speaker, Blair will give a 20-minute public talk entitled “Lessons Learned.”

“The idea seems absurd of Jayson Blair keynoting an ethics institute, but it’s an opportunity for students to confront a key figure in a major ethical scandal,” Wasserman said.

Like past institute keynoters, Blair was paid $3,000, a sum that’s well below what other W&L public speakers earn, according to Wasserman.

The news about Blair’s keynote address at an ethics institute was met with some support and a lot of criticism by local and national media professionals. Mediate writer Philip Bump calls Blair “one of this decade’s biggest disgraces,” while National Public Radio ombudsman Alicia Shepard believes Blair is enjoying the attention.

In an email, Shepard said she didn’t see the educational value in having Blair speak to students about the temptations a young journalist may face.

“There may be some temptations, but that’s not the issue,” Shepard said. “He was lazy, deceitful and didn’t do the job.”

But Wasserman doesn’t believe Blair is as attention-hungry as his detractors portray him.

“[Blair] did not seek this out and, by his account, he hasn’t done this [spoken publically about the scandal] before,” Wasserman said.

Shepard, who attended the Ethics Institute last year, hopes panelists and participants “come down hard” on Blair, otherwise his presence “might just be entertaining, not educational.” But Wasserman is confident his students are not going to sit back and let Blair place blame on others or avoid the issue of deceit altogether.

Rosemary Armao, assistant professor of journalism and communication at State University of New York at Albany, says Blair will speak to her students in December.

“I cannot imagine a more illustrative lesson for my students than to talk to the person whom we have painted as the biggest bogeyman of journalism ethics of all time,” Armao said in an email. “I want them to think about, to quiz him, to press him on how he could go so wrong.”

McGregor McCance, managing editor of Charlottesville’s Daily Progress, agrees that students have a lot to learn from Blair. “He is exhibit A for how to screw up a journalism career and diminish the credibility of an industry that can’t afford to lose credibility,” he said in an email. “The Ethics Institute deserves praise for doing something unpredictable with its forum this year.”

But Wasserman says the Blair case has been an ongoing study for the institute. “This is not our first rodeo,” he said. “Over the years we’ve done a lot with and had a sustained, considerable interest in this affair.”

Gerald Boyd, the Times managing editor who lost his job following the Blair scandal, attended the Ethics Institute in the past. Last year, Lorne Manly, Times‘ media editor while Blair worked there spoke at the institute. Manly was in charge of developing a project about the long and painful post-mortem at the Times after Blair resigned.

Cable network C-SPAN, non-profit media watchdog Accuracy In Media, and documentary filmmaker Samantha Grant will be among those present at Washington and Lee University on Friday, Nov. 6 to cover Blair’s speech.

The lingering financial crisis hasn’t stopped one Lexington man from opening shop. Commonwealth Chronicle Reporter Cameron Steele sat down with the owner of Brix°, the newest local restaurant to bring you the latest on night life in Lexington, Va.

Click the video below to watch.

By Cameron Steele

A former Virginia Military Institute cadet who faced a jury trial on felony rape and sodomy charges pleaded guilty Tuesday to a lesser charge of sexual battery.

Stephen Lloyd, 22, won’t face sentencing on the misdemeanor conviction for three years. If he stays out of trouble, he most likely won’t serve any jail time, said Commonwealth’s Attorney Bucky Joyce.

The misdemeanor sexual battery charge and delayed sentencing are part of a plea agreement that Rockbridge County Circuit Judge Michael Irvine accepted at a hearing on the eve of Lloyd’s jury trial, which was supposed to start Wednesday.

“We all feel [the plea agreement] is a good conclusion to the case because no one is completely happy with it,” Joyce told the judge.

Lloyd’s guilty plea was a so-called “Alford” plea, meaning that he did not admit guilt for all aspects of the crime. Instead, the plea means that Lloyd accepts that there is enough evidence to convict him if the case went to trial.

The case began last March when a female cadet at VMI accused Lloyd of raping and sodomizing her. At the time, Lloyd was a cadet at VMI.

Plea negotiations between Joyce and Lloyd’s defense attorneys began late Monday night and resumed Tuesday morning, continuing until almost 4 p.m., when the two sides told Irvine they had reached an agreement.

Joyce said the female cadet was consulted throughout the negotiation process. She decided to accept a plea agreement because she realized “what a tough case it would be,” he said in an interview.

On the morning of March 29, the female cadet, 21, reported to the VMI infirmary that she had been sexually assaulted by Lloyd. She later repeated her accusations to VMI police and was taken to Carilion Stonewall Jackson Hospital for a physical examination. As part of its protocol, VMI alerted Project Horizon, a Lexington-based agency that counsels cadets and others who report assaults.

Joyce told the judge that the female cadet took a few days to consider whether to press charges against Lloyd. She decided to pursue the charges, and Lloyd was arrested on April 1. A grand jury indicted Lloyd on rape and sodomy charges in July.

In an interview after Tuesday’s hearing, Joyce said he was torn about whether the evidence was strong enough to prosecute the case.

“This has been the most difficult case I’ve been involved in,” he said. “She maintained all along she’d been assaulted, but the corroborating evidence all along was weak.”

Joyce said that while scientific analysis of a swab taken from the female cadet’s neck suggested the presence of Lloyd’s DNA, no other swabs taken from anywhere on her body matched Lloyd.

Before the assault, she also had had an intimate relationship with Lloyd and had been drinking alcohol on that night — key facts that weakened the prosecution’s case, Joyce said.

“Basically, it all comes down to her testimony,” the prosecutor said during the hearing.

Joyce said his evidence would have shown:

On the night of March 28, the female cadet went to bed at about 10:30 p.m. in her barracks room, which she shared with two other cadets. A couple of hours later, Lloyd came into the room and woke her. He also sent two text messages to her cell phone, but the female cadet didn’t get the messages until later.

Lloyd asked her to smoke a cigarette with him outside the barracks, and she agreed. On their way back inside, Lloyd kissed her outside the trunk room, a basement area where cadets store their luggage. She kissed him back.

Joyce said it was unclear whether the female cadet entered the trunk room willingly.

For the next 45 minutes, the prosecutor said, Lloyd performed various “sex acts” on the female cadet against her will.

As Joyce summarized what she would have testified, the female cadet began to cry. The court bailiff handed her a box of tissues. Two of her friends, a woman and the male cadet who first convinced her to go to the infirmary after the assault, sat on either side of her and patted her shoulders.

Lloyd kept his eyes on the judge throughout the hearing. He wore a navy suit and spoke only when the judge asked him questions, answering “yes sir.”

When Joyce finished summarizing the evidence, he said the misdemeanor sexual battery charge and three-year sentencing delay were a sufficient compromise in the case.

Cary Bowen, one of Lloyd’s defense attorneys, said in court that they were ready for trial.

“We had many witnesses,” he said. “It would be hotly contested whether it [the sexual acts] was consensual or not.”

Joyce said Lloyd was dismissed from VMI after the charges were filed and did not graduate. In an interview, Lloyd said he lives in Mason Neck. He said he plans to move to Richmond to work as a helicopter mechanic and take flight lessons to become a pilot.

The female cadet returned to VMI this fall to finish her senior year. After the hearing, she rushed out of the courtroom with her two friends and could not be stopped to comment.

A former VMI cadet faces a jury trial on rape and sodomy charges. Stephen Lloyd, 21, will go to court on Oct. 14. Virginia Voice reporter Cameron Steele has more from Lexington, Va.

Steely said he used to be able to spend more time at home, but the sour economy has forced him to take to the road for longer periods. He used to spend a week on the road before returning to Nashville for a weekend’s rest. Now he’s driving for two to three weeks at a time just to make a profit.

It will be a month before he sees his son again.

“I’ve missed ballgames and his life in general,” he said.

Like Steely, Pendleton has a 13-year-old son who stays at home in Tennessee, cared for by his grandmother.

But because Pendleton’s company doesn’t allow its drivers to travel with minors, she gets to see her son Dustin only when she goes home, once every two weeks. She says it’s difficult to be away from him, but they try to talk on the phone every day.

And, thanks to her trucking job, the little family that used to struggle to get by every day can now afford whitewater rafting and camping trips. But Pendleton knows she would never advise Dustin to go into trucking.

“I would tell him I would rather him go get a good education and something stable and not as lonely,” she said. “The hardest part about this is that it is so lonely.”

Steely agrees. He wants his son to go to college and get the education he never had. But his son, not put off by a long-distance dad, wants to follow in his father’s occupational footsteps.

Like Steely, Wayne Black became a trucker out of sheer love for the open road. But unlike the Nashville trucker, Black, originally a New Yorker, doesn’t find the long-haul life all that lonely. An independent man, Black goes home, but not to see family. Instead, he trades in his 18 wheels for two and hits the road on his motorcycle.

The biker tattoos covering his arms are misleading, because Black, a blood donor and pen pal to third-graders, is anything but a tough guy. He cherishes the freedom of traveling cross country, but chastises truckers who disrespect the industry. The risky road practices of those drivers — illegal parking, speeding and inattention — give trucking a bad rap, he said.

“They don’t realize they’re taking someone’s life in their hands by running down the road four feet off a little car or even another truck,” said Black.

For Pendleton, the loneliness of life on the road makes her see little future in trucking. Her heart is always homeward bound, looking forward to being with her son and her boyfriend, who recently proposed to her. Pendleton proudly flashes her diamond ring, a prized family heirloom.

She insists it’s not an engagement ring, but a confirmation of their strong commitment and devotion to each other. She tries to contain her excitement, because she’s been married before. Dustin’s father divorced her after a 13-year marriage, and she was barely getting by when she met the truck driver who would become her boyfriend. But Pendleton doesn’t only miss spending time with her son and boyfriend at their home in Tennessee.

“I miss my son, and I miss being home, but the thing that I miss the most is being able to jump in that shower anytime you want to,” she said.

Although Pendleton says she’s not a girly girl, she says she still wants to feel like a woman while on the road, which has so far proven to be difficult.

“I had my nails for a while done because I wanted to be a little feminine out here being a truck driver, but you can’t really stop and park at a nail salon to get your nails done in that big truck,” she said.

Darrell Lewis, an owner-operator who is a devout Christian first, doesn’t let small parking lots keep him away from Sunday sermons. For Lewis, his truck cab has been his home-on-the-road and Bible-study-on-wheels for the past 21 years.

Lewis specializes in hauling hazardous materials such as chlorine and paint, a dangerous job for sure, but a far cry from the days when he transported gasoline.

An accident that spilled 5,000 gallons of gasoline and ruptured his inner ear forced him into six months of rehabilitation. He tried to go back to his old job hauling loads of gas, but anxiety attacks finally got the better of him. He switched to the lesser danger of transporting chemicals.

Not risk-free, but then long-haul trucking never is, no matter the load.

“Trucking is trucking, you know what I’m saying? We all have to be safe, it doesn’t matter what we’re hauling,” Lewis said.

“We can all die whether we’re doing cotton candy or chemicals.”

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/distortedsmile/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Tammy Pendleton might not have 19 years of trucking under her belt, but she’s still gone far. She can remember exactly what she was wearing when she was last in California. It was January and she was standing in a strawberry patch, in shorts and taking in the incredible sight of the snowy mountain tops on the horizon.

It has been almost two years since Pendleton traded her housewife apron for an air-ride-equipped 18-wheeler that she’s since driven through at least 40 states.

“If you don’t mind being alone, it’s good,” Pendleton said. “I come across around the corner up in New York and saw Lake Eerie and the blue sky, and the blue lake, and then snow out on the ice. It was just the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

But life on the road is tough for truck drivers, and even more so for a woman driver. Pendleton says she feels she needs to watch her back more because she’s a woman. Her sparkling eyes have gotten her into tight situations a few times already, once while she was delivering a load to a customer.

“This guy says to me, he says, ‘You have the prettiest blue eyes.’ And I said ‘Thank you,’ and he said, ‘You know, those would look really good in a jar on a shelf somewhere.’

“I’m not joking,” she said, shaking her head.

Pendleton thinks women truckers face resentment from their condescending male counterparts, but she said that the situation has gotten better as more women have entered the industry.

Pendleton’s trucker boyfriend taught her how to drive a truck and helped her get a license. She’s grateful for the lessons because she doesn’t think getting a commercial driver’s license was as hard as it should be. Pendleton said she went to trucking school for three weeks and got only an hour of driving time.

“They’re just pushing people through,” she said.

Other professional truckers agree that obtaining a truck license is not difficult.

“It’s a six-week process,” said Chism. “But I mean you can find anybody that, you know, owns a truck that is willing to spend a couple weeks with you to show you how to shift the gears, blah, blah, blah, and, you know. You can take it from there.”

Male or female, truckers say the lessons and special license required of truckers don’t prepare them for the reality of life on the road.

Pendleton has learned through trial and error where it’s safe to stop and where she’s likely to encounter “spooky characters.” She starts her day before sunrise and tries to be in her truck and ready for bed before dark because she doesn’t want any trouble. She learned not to open her truck door at night after being solicited by a surprised female prostitute who quickly halved her price.

Other truckers have learned to tune out those nighttime knocks. But it’s impossible to ignore other concerns, such as the tougher competition in the industry, especially since the economy tanked.

In 2001 The Industrial and Labor Relations Review found the average trucker worked 62 hours a week with only nine days vacation a year. Those hours equal one and a half full-time jobs, according to the review, an academic journal published by Cornell University.

That means less time at home with family. Dissatisfaction with the amount of time truckers are able to spend with their families is a leading cause for high turnover rates in the trucking industry, a Transportation Research Board study found in 1998. The research board is a private, nonprofit institution, operating under the National Research Council.

Steely’s desire to be permanently homeward-bound is further enhanced by his longing to be with 13-year-old son. A rising star as the quarterback for his local middle school, Steely’s son uses Facebook and email to brief Steely on game recaps, schoolwork, and the life of a Nashville teenager.

The old days of the CB radio, celebrated in countless trucker songs, are gone. A Verizon wireless card plugged into his laptop computer connects Steely to his son. Other on-the-road comforts include a satellite radio, which he uses to listen to FOX News and NASCAR races.

Steely’s truck is also equipped with a fax machine and a printer that help him keep track of his orders and organize his business. The cab has all the amenities of a small apartment, including a refrigerator, a small TV set and a microwave oven. Pendleton uses the microwave oven in her truck cab to make her favorite on-the-road snack: Easy Mac.

Steely even brings his son with him for week-long trips when he is on his school breaks. That means Steely has to rearrange his cab so that his son can sleep on the twin bed’s top bunk, an area he usually uses for storage.

“I gotta dismantle everything up there,” he said, laughing.

But Steely isn’t complaining. He says he jumps at the chance to spend time with his son. And that does not happen as much as he’d like. (to be continued)