Radford University student Jordan Addison’s 1999 Volkswagon had been the victim of vandalism on four separate occasions thanks to some callous co-eds bashing in his windows and keying “die fag” into his car doors. Unable to afford the necessary repairs, Addison drove around in his whipped whip for four months, trying unsuccessfully to hide the gay slurs with spray paint and replacing his slashed tires with several mismatched pairs.
But then Addison’s guardian angel appeared in the form of Roanoke’s Quality Paint and Body manager Richard Henegar, Jr. After a friend who worked at Radford told Henegar about the kid rolling around in the gay-hate mobile, the auto body man gathered support from 10 other local businesses to give Addison a surprise of Pimp My Ride-proportions.
“We don’t take kindly to discrimination of any sort here. I was bullied in high school and a little bit in the service and I saw an opportunity to help somebody out,” Henegar told the Daily News. “As soon as I saw his car, I said, ‘We’re gonna fix this, it’s the least we can do.’”
Addison thought that Henegar was simply going to replace his door and was no doubt relieved to tool around in a small, red Fiat courtesy of an Enterprise car rental agency during the two weeks the car was being repaired. Meanwhile, Henegar and some volunteers spent 100 hours and over $10,000 restoring Addison’s bashed-up V-Dub, adding scratch-resistant paint, new tires, tinted windows, a new stereo and even a new security system.
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Then, on Monday, Henegar invited Addison back to take a look at his handiwork.
“I was entirely speechless. I just walked around saying, ‘Oh, my God, this is not my car,’” the aspiring PhD student gushed to the Daily News. “It just restored my faith, my good faith, in people.”
And now that both his car and his faith in humanity have been restored, Addison is taking steps to preserve at least one of them, renting a spot in a gated parking lot with camera surveillance for when he returns to campus — which just happens to be today. So here’s hoping that Jordan has a smooth ride from here on out.
Neo
Brilliant, only by fostering the reality that the gay struggle is a people struggle can we return to good, honest moral values. The community they showed is fantastic.
You cannot be moral and only interested in the money and the hate.
jkb
Nice story 🙂
n900mixalot
This is nice to wake up to!
hephaestion
I hope he gets the hell out of Roanoke before it happens again. And I hope the HRC honors the wonderful people & shops that contributed to fixing up this man’s vandalized car. This is one of the nicest things I have ever heard of.
MickeyP.
What an awesome story and a great thing for people to do! I just can’t believe,in this day and age,that there are STILL idiots out there that would do this awful thing to another human being!Thankfully,there are also open-minded,incredible people who do just the opposite!
robtosh
Three cheers for Richard Henegar, and a sound thrashing for the bigots at Radford University!
Cam
If you watch the video you can see that the owner of the shop is younger, I think that is what NOM is afraid off. Even in conservative areas, the younger people aren’t nearly as homophobic. NOM is fighting a losing battle.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/jordan-addison-bullied-car_n_1819863.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices
hassia
nice story.