In Memory

Bill Weems

Bill Weems

 August 22, 1987|From Times Wire Services

WASHINGTON — A helicopter hovering over a Potomac River channel on a photography assignment plunged into the water Friday, killing three passengers who were trapped under water for 20 minutes. The pilot jumped out to safety seconds before impact, officials said.

The five-seat Bell Jet Ranger craft was about 100 yards from land and about 15 feet above the Washington Channel when it apparently developed a mechanical problem, dropped into the water and flipped over, District of Columbia Police Chief Maurice Turner said.

Those killed were photographer William Weems, 44; Robert Joy, 45, both of Washington, and Victoria Hinckley, 24, a secretary for Arlington, Va.-based Sumner Realty Corp.

Weems was shooting pictures for a brochure for the realty company when the helicopter crashed at 7:30 a.m., authorities said. Joy and Hinckley were in the craft for the ride, according to friends.

Weems was a free-lance photographer whose pictures had appeared in National Geographic magazine. His book, "Georgia: The Home Place," won a New York Critics award.



 
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07/27/21 12:30 PM #1    

Charles Styron

Bill entered the Broughton scene at the beginning of our Junior Year as I recall, and at the end of the year, he was elected President of the Student Council. Not bad for a Newcomer, and although I felt the sting of losing the election to him, we became the best of friends. We used to go trail running in Umstead Park, cementing a friendship that continued after we graduated up until his untimely death. Barry Greenspon called me in 1987 to communicate what he had heard about Bill’s passing on the Evening News. The helicopter crash in which he died occurred on the Potomac River right in the center of Washington, DC, magnetizing national attention. What a shock that was! This was the second taste of death that I had had of someone really close in my own age cohort—a best friend cut down in his prime. My college roommate had died several years earlier from a cerebral aneurysm. 

Bill was inordinately optimistic and extremely outgoing. I called him “Weems,” the last-name moniker that I adopted for addressing many male friends. After graduating from college, Bill married the similarly optimistic and outgoing Prisca Crettier, another close friend of mine from the years after High School. Every Christmas we would rendezvous together at the Crettier household, which was just across from Barry Greenspon’s house on Byrd Street. Reynolds Price had lived there previously when we were all much younger. On a couple of occasions, I remember that the Crettiers had small burning candles on the Christmas tree—a centuries old European holiday tradition. Great care was taken when this was done, naturally. 

At some point after getting married and moving to Washington, Bill secured a position on the Staff of the Hawaiian Senator, Daniel Inouye. This was all-consuming work apparently and was very unforgiving with regard to schedule. Bill also simultaneously developed an interest in photography, later becoming well known for some of his National Geographic photographs and portraits of Southern life. At some point—I think relatively early in his moonlighting career—Senator Inouye found out about Bill’s divided loyalties and let him go. From what I remember, however, Bill was ready to leave anyway. He embraced his new profession with passion, and his gregariousness earned him access to places that a more reserved photographer might never have seen. Man, could Bill talk!

One of the things that I remember most fondly about Bill was a quality that he shared with Rick Suberman. Both of them knew how to battle politically with my father—something that I never really mastered—and Bill was fearless and loaded with humor when he did it. He was very skillful at getting my father to laugh at himself, and my father loved him for it—never outwardly admitting it, of course. Bill was also pretty good at giving me the needle, and it wasn’t really a fair fight. What the hell was I gonna do; he was six feet taller than I was!

HAIL BILL WEEMS HAIL


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