Lory D. Rich

On the  March 19, 2013 my partner Lory D. Rich and I were working together in Dispatch. That day started out like any other day; we clocked in at 05:50 a.m. and began our shift like always, fussing at one another. At 06:45 a.m. Chief Randy Boykin of Enterprise, Mississippi, (Enterprise 1) went in service on the radio like always. Around 07:00 a.m. we took a call about a disturbance on County Road 514 in Clarke County. We dispatched a County Deputy to the call. Later in that call, the female victim told us that the male suspect now had a weapon so we immediately advised the County Deputy of it. The female victim then told us that the male suspect had left the residence. I advised the County unit that the male suspect had left. Shortly thereafter, Chief Randy Boykin came across the radio asking the County Deputy if he still needed him to come that way on the call. The County Deputy advised that’s a negative since the male suspect had left. At 07:30 a.m., the 911 caller, the female on the other end of the line, who had an accent and was hard to understand, reported to us that someone had been hit by a car in Enterprise. We asked the caller to tell us where the accident had happened while trying to find the location of accident. My partner was calling Enterprise 1 on the radio, but she never got a response from him. About that time the female caller said it was in front of A&M Fried Chicken. I looked at my partner and asked could it have been Randy that had been hit. My partner immediately started paging out Enterprise Fire Department, Enterprise Ambulance and Enterprise First Responders, while I called Paratech Ambulance Service, Sheriff Todd Kemp, and the Chief Deputy. I also called a Mississippi Highway Patrolman that lived about 150 yards from the accident scene. Lory never lost her composure, and kept a level head. After Chief Boykin was airlifted to University Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi, and not knowing the status of Chief Boykin we prayed that he would be okay. At 10:30 am, we received the worst news any dispatch could ever get: that Chief Randy Boykin had passed away from his injuries sustained in the accident. At the time, my partner and I had a moment of silence and went back to working the radios. We knew we had a job to do, and Chief Randy Boykin would have wanted us to stay and do our job. It was on that day that I learned that I truly had a partner that I could count on no matter what.