Community remembers Lynchburg police officer

By Darrell Laurant

Published: May 4, 2008

The two lives that Will Branham led fused together in perfect symmetry Sunday.

Branham was a popular member of the Lynchburg Police Department, which turned out almost en masse for his funeral. But he was also a proud member of the Monacan tribe, which gathered its members together — many in traditional regalia — to remember his life in their own way.

Two very different identities, two very different ceremonies.

The first was at the Whitten Monelison Chapel in Madison Heights, where literally hundreds of police officers, county deputies, firemen and rescue squad workers filed past the open casket to pay their respects. Many of them had arrived in a long procession of police vehicles that snaked from downtown Lynchburg to the chapel like a shimmering necklace of blue lights.

When that ceremony was over, an even longer funeral procession turned off U.S. 29 and flowed five miles back into the Amherst County countryside, winding up at St. Paul’s Cemetery in the shadow of Bear Mountain, the Monacans’ sacred peak. There, in a picturesque little hollow on Monacan land, Branham — who died of cancer April 30 at the age of 26 — was honored with police rifle fire, the traditional bagpipe version of “Amazing Grace,” and a lengthy exhibition of dance and singing by members of the tribe.

Rufus Elliott, a young man who had struggled to say a few words about his friend at the Whitten Chapel, stepped inside the circle and sang a funeral song in a loud, clear, proud voice. George Whitewolf directed prayers to the four directions of the compass. And then, as the mourners finally dispersed, they were followed up the hill by the haunting sound of Monacan drums.

During the ceremony, several members of the crowd fell to the ground from heat prostration, and were immediately surrounded and treated by some of the dozens of EMT personnel in attendance.

Most police funerals of this magnitude involve an officer killed in the line of duty. Branham died three weeks after he was diagnosed with a particularly virulent strain of cancer, but Whitewolf praised his courage at the Whitten funeral, saying: “I saw a man who lived and died without fear.”

According to Whitewolf, Branham asked him in his final days “What can I do for you?”

“I told him,” Whitewolf said, “when you reach the spirit world, I’d like you to make a pot of buffalo soup and find a pipe with sweet Lakota tobacco and have it waiting for me.’ And he said, ‘You’ve got it.’”

Kenneth Branham, the Monacan chief, talked of how Branham used to participate in pow-wows as a dancer and drummer.

“He was like a son to me,” Branham said. “He was one of the first of our young people to learn the traditional dances, and he was learning our language.”

Police officer Kevin Singleton knew little of this. To him, Branham was one of his best friends on the force, someone with whom he shared a love of music, X-Box games and dodgeball.

“There’s a game called Rock Band,” Singleton said, “and you can create your own band. He was the drummer and I was the lead guitar player. We called ourselves ‘Nickodemus.’”

Branham also organized a police dodgeball team that competed in a local league.

“I mean, how often do police officers get to throw things at people?” Singleton said. “We played yesterday (Saturday), and we wiped up the floor with the other team. We wanted to win for Will.”

Two other of Branham’s fellow officers choked up before they could get through three sentences.

Branham was also praised as a family man and an officer who was compassionate and fair — as well as wielding a wicked sense of humor.

“I think about that country song, ‘Live Like You Were Dying,’” said another member of the Lynchburg Police Department. “Will didn’t know he was going to die young, but that’s how he lived.”

Branham was survived by his wife, April, and two young children. And a tribe.