Community commemorates 'selfless' life of slain U.S. television cameraman

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Community commemorates ‘selfless’ life of slain U.S. television cameraman

Salem High School will open its doors to the community Monday to commemorate the life of alumnus Adam Ward, the 27-year-old cameraman for a Roanoke, Va., television station who was slain on live TV last week. The Ward family has stayed out of the spotlight since Wednesday, when he and reporter Alison Parker were gunned down by a former co-worker. Ward was engaged to morning show producer Melissa Ott, who had recently gotten a job in Charlotte, N.C. She was celebrating her last day working in Roanoke when the shooting happened. Ward and Ott, of Gibbstown, N.J., were planning to get married in July 2016.

Many photographs show the couple at football games, which Ward loved to attend when he wasn’t playing tennis. Even when cheering for Ott’s alma mater, Penn State, Ward would wear a Virginia Tech hat — he graduated from Virginia Tech in 2011 with a degree in communication — with a Penn State shirt. The family of Ward, a 2007 graduate of the high school, has asked visitors to wear the colors of his favorite teams, Virginia Tech and Salem High, where he played football for the Spartans on two state championship teams. Friends have described Ward as especially close with his parents, and he and his father were scheduled to cover Salem High School football games for WDBJ on Friday night before the shootings occurred.