I spent yesterday on the story of Dwayne Alexander, the counselor at the Los Angeles Job Corps who was stabbed to death Wednesday by one of the students at the center.
I was struck by how his friends, some from years ago, spoke about him, and overwhelmed because of that, as the day went on, by what a sweet and solid guy he must have been in life. They described him as “a gentle soul” and “a very kind spirit,” rarely angry and never a braggart. These would be rare qualities, I suspect, in the world of record label promotion, which is where he spent much of his career. I suspect also that they would have been enormously helpful as a job counselor for youths on the edge.
He seemed also the kind of guy who had a long-term goal — screenwriting and production — that was his guiding compass. No matter what he did, he was headed that way.
But he interrupted it all to go back home to Tulsa to help his mother recover from double knee-replacement surgery a few years back.
“People say the good die young,” R&B singer Millie Jackson told me, “and this was a totally good example of that.”
