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JD Dooley - Life Through a Wide Angle Lens
JD Dooley is the official Mast Store photographer and he works in the cyberspace Mast General Store heading up the E-Commerce department. Maps of cyberspace show zillions of lines connecting people to people all over the globe. When viewing these maps, one can almost feel the energy crackling from computer screen with all the activity. JD and cyberspace are a perfect fit. Since his childhood, he has formed connections, energetically moving from one event or place to another.
JD was born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia. When he was five years old, his father died and his mom took on the responsibility of raising three children, completing two master’s degrees, and starting her career as a kindergarten teacher. JD and his older brother Mark - older by just 362 days - were as close as twins and spent much of their youth together. The Dooley family lived in a neighborhood full of children and the kids enjoyed the safe environment riding bikes or walking to school, spending as much time outside as possible. Younger sister Susann wasn’t so interested in the boys’ pursuits of outdoor activities and sports so she and the girls in the neighborhood filled their days with ‘girl stuff’.
JD played every conceivable sport growing up and still enjoys playing today. He ran track, wrestled, played baseball, football, tennis and was on his high school’s inaugural soccer team. Before cycling was made popular by Lance Armstrong, JD was riding as a Category 4 junior racer when he was 15 years old. When he wasn’t competing on some level, JD was active with scouting and cultivated his life long pursuit of backpacking, climbing and water sports. He attended Camp Arrowhead with his scout troop and during the summers while attending Barboursville High School, JD worked as a lifeguard at Arrowhead and then became the waterfront director.
After high school graduation, JD packed some clothes and his guitar onto his Suzuki motorcycle and left for Wrightsville Beach, NC. He spent the summer working as a beach lifeguard and attended UNC-Wilmington for his freshman year. JD moved further south to Jekyll Island in the summer of 1981 to lifeguard and became involved with the fire and rescue departments. He obtained his paramedic license and worked with the fire department when he wasn’t lifeguarding or taking university courses in Brunswick.
JD decided to make a change from watching the water to living on it. He spent the next several years on an 80 foot shrimp boat along the Georgia and Florida coast. Starting out his fishing career as a striker, the person who tosses everything back into the ocean that is not a shrimp, JD loved being on the water and shrimping. The work was hard with rotating four-hour shifts and staying out until the holds were full of shrimp but JD enjoyed the lifestyle. Realizing the captain has the best job on the boat, JD took the necessary course work and tests and achieved the title of Captain JD Dooley.
Moving further south to the Miami and Key West area, JD served briefly as a 1st mate on a shrimper but soon became the captain of Fatal Attraction, a sport fishing boat. Customers enjoyed fishing with JD and the almost always successful catch of marlin, sailfish and mahi mahi. The income was great and allowed JD the opportunity to subsidize his love of photography and writing. Inspired in the 7th grade in his photography and school newspaper classes, he was now able to pursue a career in the media.
Calling a sailboat home, JD settled into the wonderfully casual lifestyle of Key West, the southernmost city in the Continental US, only 90 miles from Havana, Cuba. He spent his days taking photographs, writing stories, racing around the beautiful waters in his “cigarette” boat, fishing, and opening JD’s Bike Shop. Originally just a kiosk of rental beach bikes, his shop grew to include selling new Diamond Back bikes, a full repair shop, and accessories. Tourists and locals could be seen sporting JD’s Bike Shop tee shirts designed by “Bloom County” cartoonist and author Berkeley Breathed.
JD’s journalism career bloomed in late 1991. He had been covering the Cuban refugee issue for the Key West Citizen for several years, reporting on the dreadful conditions of life in Cuba and the multitudes of Cubans who fled to Key West via rafts. He shared the horrific stories of refugees dying of dehydration, exposure, and starvation while trying to get to the US and the happier endings of those who survived the passage.
JD exposed a scandal regarding the Navy’s housing complex at Peary Court and the story was picked up on the AP Wire. Not long afterwards, Spencer Reiss of Newsweek Magazine (now a contributing editor for Wired Magazine) called to ask JD for lunch. JD took Zach, his two week old son, cozy in his bouncy seat, with him for the lunch meeting, thinking Reiss was just trying to pry information from him about Peary Court. Instead, Reiss offered JD a job with Newsweek’s Key West Bureau as a writer.
Writing for Newsweek provided JD with some great adventures. He continued to cover the issues surrounding Cuba, often spending a week at a time there with other reporters. After the Soviet Union pulled out of Cuba, traveling about the country was more relaxed and JD grew to appreciate the hard working, dedicated Cuban people. JD stayed with Newsweek for several years before he and Zach made a move to the mountains of North Carolina in 1994. However, the Dooleys will always have ties to the Keys, as they both hold “Honorary Conch Certificates” bestowed to worthy Key West citizens by Mayor Wilhelmina Harvey.
After moving to the mountains, JD was hired as an editor of the Watauga Democrat and free-lanced for several other local papers. He kept up his outdoor adventure activities as a counselor at Camp Broadstone in Valle Crucis and spent as much free time as he could outdoors.
Always looking for more challenges, JD started his own newspaper, The Paper, a college alternative paper with distribution in Boone, Asheville, Black Mountain, Charlotte, and Wilmington. While running the paper, JD had an opportunity to travel to Kosovo to cover the atrocities of that war. He also taught photojournalism at Appalachian State University during this time of his career. JD thoroughly enjoyed The Paper but after four years of busy, lengthy days, he sold it and brought his talents to the Mast General Store.
From the Boone Mast Store’s outdoor department, JD soon moved into the marketing department with Duane Woolbright. Their wildly creative minds made for some really fun days here at the Mast Store corporate offices! JD took over answering the Mast Store emails, enabling customers to contact the store with merchandise requests, questions, and often just to say hello. As the concept of E-Commerce was developed, JD moved into that area and provided support and customer service in cyberspace. He stays busy as the company photographer, shooting ads for our print media as well as for the website. He has become an instructor trainer with the Leave No Trace (LNT) program. LNT teaches outdoor etiquette skills to a wide audience, whether a 30-minute presentation to a civic club or a two-day backpacking adventure. JD hopes the LNT program grows at the Mast Store as he so appreciates the gifts provided by being in the outdoors.
Some of JD’s favorites are:
Favorite thing in the world: Being a dad. JD adores Zach and supports him in all of his pursuits- soccer, backpacking, geocaching, mountain biking, and paintball, to name a few.
Favorite book right now: Miracle of Castel Di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy by Joe McGinniss. JD loves to read and his day is not complete without several hours of reading.
Favorite online newspaper:Miami Herald, Key West Citizen.
Favorite hobbies: Backpacking, coaching for High Country Soccer Association, refereeing for Parks and Recreation soccer, and Favorite 2005 Christmas gift: DC United soccer jersey.
Favorite food to eat and cook: Shrimp. Even after all those years on a shrimp boat, shrimp is his favorite, especially shrimp scampi.
Favorite camera: Nikon. JD loves the digital camera world and doesn’t miss the darkroom days of developing film. He figures he has shot ½ million rolls of film on his Nikon F4.
Favorite day off: Using his GPS and heading out to geocache with friends and family.
Favorite Mast Memories: Photo shoots with Duane Woolbright and any time spent with Dean Barnett.
JD is engaged to marry Melissa O’Brien. He proposed to her along the Blue Ridge Parkway in May and their wedding will probably be in 2006.
Be sure to ask for JD during your next visit to the Mast General Store in Boone (where our E-Commerce office is located). JD will be happy to take a break from zipping around cyberspace to chat for a while. Be careful though, his energy and enthusiasm for life are contagious! |