Tori Anderson was upbeat, witty, and people loved her

Editor’s note: On Sundays, The Herald-Mail publishes “A Life Remembered.” Each story in this continuing series takes a look back — through the eyes of family, friends, co-workers and others — at a member of the community who died recently. Today’s “A Life Remembered” is about Tori Anderson, who died June 19 at the age of 63.

Tori Anderson had a way of connecting with people as a radio DJ and country music performer, and it continued in her public battle against a rare connective tissue disorder.

The singer, remembered for her band Tori Anderson and Possum Holler, was exposed to music early in her life at church while growing up in Hancock. She sang gospel music with her parents in a band called The Singing Ambassadors and met her husband, Michael, when the two were in a band known as Friends and Spirit.

Michael, her husband of 36 years, accompanied Tori on guitar and they formed the band White Raven.

Tori's daughter Kayla Byrne remembers her mother's start in radio in the 1990s. Tori's name was Vicki Marie Shaw-Anderson. When she worked at a station in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., she was one of two women named Vicki working there. To discern between them, the station owner referred to the singer as Tori, and the moniker stuck.

WAYZ

Tori started work at 104.7 WAYZ in Greencastle, Pa., in 1996, perfecting a radio personality that is still talked about at the country station today. As a host on the station's mid-day show from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tori hosted the High Noon Saloon Request Hour with Tori.

She became known for her upbeat and witty style, and listeners loaded the phone line in response, according to Dan Michaels, one of the station's current DJs who goes by Tiny on the air.

Michaels said he never saw a DJ at the station take as many calls as Tori, and she made each of the people feel as if they were the center of attention.

Building the listenership that Tori had typically takes someone decades to develop, Michaels said.

"Tori did it in a few years," he said.

At one point, Tori noticed something unusual going on in her body. When she lifted her arm above her head she felt like her skin was tearing apart. She remembered an ABC TV movie about a 42-year-old man who died after a five-year battle with scleroderma, a rare connective tissue disease that demonstrates the same symptoms. There is no cure.

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Tori was diagnosed with scleroderma in 2008, and she was also told that she had a less common systemic type that attacks internal organs.

In 2013, Herald-Mail columnist Tim Rowland wrote about Tori's battle with the disease, asking readers to imagine trying to bend their elbows or tie their shoes when their skin feels like a mat of rigid plastic.

Rowland envisioned the struggle Tori must have felt at times trying to get up in the morning to leave her Hancock home for the commute to the Greencastle radio station.

"It becomes a test of wills: Tori on one side, scleroderma on the other," Rowland wrote.

Vowing to 'go out on a good note'

Tori took it in her usual positive style, avoiding medication to manage the pain.

"I knew I'd rather go out on a good note than having people saying, 'Oh, that poor little thing,'" she said at the time.

Michaels and former WAYZ DJ Katy Dickinson remembered Tori recently in a podcast program the station produces every week and posts on its website and YouTube channel.

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Dickinson thought about what Tori must have been going through with the disease, all the while still working at the station and taking calls from listeners. But Dickinson described how Tori was able to "put that to the back of her brain and focus on what you were talking about."

The station's noon request hour is now called Tunes at Noon, but Michaels said in the podcast that the hour was renamed the High Noon Saloon Request Hour with Tori on June 21 in honor of her. He also played some of Tori's favorite songs that day, as well as some of her music.

He said during the podcast that some listeners may not have known of Tori since she had not been at the station in nine years, and he talked more about what made her special.

"You'd only have to be around Tori for a minute and you would get a full sense of who she was, the way she made you feel," Michaels said. She could make a difference, even if someone was having the worst day, he said.

Tori eventually had to give up the job in 2013, and she stopped singing around 2011.

Walks with Tori

But then the public saw a new side to Tori — her public battle against scleroderma. To raise money for research to fight the disease, Tori organized Walks with Tori in Doubs Woods Park in Hagerstown.

She raised tens of thousands of dollars in the walks and gave money to the University of Pittsburgh's Scleroderma Center where she was treated.

Kayla said her mother got her strong spirit through a close relationship with God. While dealing with the disease, Tori loved sitting on her porch at her Hancock home, reading the Bible and listening to the birds.

Tori's obituary recalled her "Sunday Sermons," which she would write out and post on social media to share with her supporters.

"I just think about her remarkable strength. That's the one thing that comes to mind when I remember her. Even (during) the hardest times," Kayla said.

Tori also is survived by two other children, Dustin and Summer.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: WAYZ DJ and country music singer Tori Anderson connected with people