GLADE SPRING, Va. – Billie Jo Fogleman wanted a motorcycle for her 40th birthday.
So her husband, Jim, got her a shiny black Harley Davidson Sportster. Just weeks later on July 11, her first big ride with her husband and five friends, she was killed in an accident two hours away in North Carolina.
The Foglemans are longtime members of Washington County’s Life Saving Crew, and her death weighed heavily on the area’s close-knit rescue teams.
“It’s a brotherhood,” said friend Jerry “Pokey” Poston of volunteer rescue workers throughout the region, “We’re a family outside a family. And it’s been hell.”
Dozens of Southwest Virginia’s rescue volunteers, many of whom share Fogleman’s motorcycle hobby, gathered at the Glade Spring Volunteer Life Saving Crew station Sunday afternoon for a memorial ride and fundraiser.
The ride was originally planned as a 100-mile circle, but was cut short because of rain.
When the 10-bike crew returned to the station, they presented Fogleman’s husband with a check for $1,025 – individual donations from riders, friends and strangers – to put back for Hannah, their 11-year-old daughter.
“Hannah’s been my crutch through this,” Fogleman said of his tall, sandy-haired daughter. “She’s a lot like her mom, a really headstrong individual. People who know us say looking at Hannah is like looking at a carbon copy of Billie Jo.”
A buffet stretched along 30 feet of folding tables and the door-prize drawing lasted 30 minutes because they had so much to give away. More than 100 area businesses – from Glade Spring to Johnson City – donated food, money, utensils and prizes. A banner stretched across the tables: In Loving Memory of Billie Jo Fogleman, it read, surrounded by more than 50 signatures.
Still, the event’s organizers were disappointed by the turn-out, blamed the rain and quickly planned to reconvene next Sunday for another, hopefully larger, memorial ride. Anybody interested in riding along can call the Glade Spring crew station at (276) 429-5522 for more information.
“I never realized we had touched so many people through the years,” said Jim Fogleman. “On the Life Saving Crew, I’ve always been on the other side of the spectrum. And it’s hard being on this end of things.”
The Foglemans fell in love at the rodeo 20 years ago, got married and a couple years later joined the Life Saving Crew. Jim Fogleman is now the captain.
Friends say Billie Jo Fogleman saved hundreds of lives in her time there, and it was a packed house at her Abingdon funeral.
Ron Gilman, with Motorcycle Ministries, said motorcycle riders share a common bond. “You ever notice how riders, even ones that don’t know each other, wave as they pass?” Gilman said. “It’s just a courtesy. Once it gets in your system, you’re in the family.”
Billie Jo Fogleman worked in the transportation department of Dutt and Wagner, a poultry wholesaler in Abingdon. She wanted more than anything to have her own bike and learn how to ride. So her co-worker, Wanda Vance, 54, loaned her a little bike to practice on, and was right behind her on the ride that killed her.
“I haven’t rode my bike since,” Vance said. “But today is for Billie Jo.”
“Up in heaven, there’s a little biker ride now,” said Vance’s husband, Mike Oliver, 52. “So she never doesn’t get to ride.”
cgalofaro@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2531
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