![]() This marks the third time (2010, 2011, and 2014) that Reed has taken the top prize-officially making it a bike-commuting dynasty! Reed was awarded a one-by-one-inch 2014 plaque to mount on the trophy it earned in 2010. The award celebration was held at Portland City Hall the evening of October 9. ![]() Thanks to a side bet by Reed’s co-organizers, Josh Shalek and Claire Michie, a worn pair of Reedie bike shorts will be framed, possibly spritzed with Old Spice, and hung in the hallways of one of the country’s most prestigious and successful ad firms. The winner earns bragging rights for bike commuting supremacy in one of the most bike-friendly cities in the country. ![]() And this year, Reed logged more miles during the month of September than did our crosstown competitors. ![]() Over the past several years, the two organizations have finished at the top of the Portland Bike Commute Challenge leader board for large organizations. When it comes to bike commuting in Portland, Reed College and Wieden & Kennedy are the Montagues and Capulets, Red Sox and Yankees, Liverpool and Manchester United, or the Sharks and the Jets. Yet for the policeman who's only recently become a piper, Ayub's renditions of "Going Home" and later "Amazing Grace" echoed as clearly and powerfully through the East Tennessee foothills as any Scottish peaks.Reed’s co-organizers Josh Shalek and Claire Michie ? It doesn't have the same meaning if I don't." "It's an honor (to play at funerals), especially when I know the person. "He didn't just do the job, just go through the motions. "Joe took me in and treated me with a great deal of respect," said Ayub, who now works with KPD's Forensics Unit. The deceased ? Joseph David Key Jr., a retired 30-year veteran police officer who previously had served as a city firefighter as well ? was also Ayub's first patrol partner when he transferred to Knoxville from the El Paso Police Department in 1986. Much like the other officers who kept close to their ceremonial M-14s lying in the grass, Ayub stood watch over his pipes, taking care to keep them in the shade while the instrument's multiple reeds acclimated to the summertime humidity.įriday's was the fourth funeral Ayub had played for and perhaps his most poignant yet. Amid the dress uniforms, Ayub was the only one wearing a kilt, patterned in the official tartan of the International Police Association. Readying for a memorial service for one of their own Friday, Ayub stood apart from the members of KPD's honor guard as they mingled on the hillside of a Blount County church cemetery. Or at least according to the department's historian, who couldn't find any record of another sworn Knoxville officer who played. "As far as I know, I'm the first," Ayub said. In fact, the belated introduction to his boyhood interest ultimately had a fortuitous way of intersecting with the man's chosen profession.Īyub, 55, is now KPD's first and only official bagpiper ? a position many might assume would already be filled in a long-established police department. He now practices weekly with the Knoxville Pipes and Drums club or, as Ayub calls it, "the other KPD." His first lesson soon followed in February last year. After a vacation to Scotland with his wife, Savannah, who also works at KPD as a patrol sergeant, she bought him his first set of bagpipes when they came home. It wouldn't be until decades later that Ayub finally was able to explore his fascination with the pipes. I do love music, but I've never learned to play an instrument before." Even in a family that regularly made time each Sunday afternoon for musical appreciation, when his mother would put on everything from big band to classical records, the arid American Southwest was always a long way from the misty Scottish Highlands. Growing up in El Paso, Texas, however, Ayub said he had little opportunity to actually learn how to play. Their distinctive, ominous wail had the same arresting effect on the Knoxville Police Department lieutenant when he first heard it as a boy. Everyone stops what they're doing at the sound of bagpipes, says Vincent Ayub.
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