The story, which appeared in the newspaper just a few days ago, bears repeating.
A Lowell patrol officer stepped in, on his own time and his own dime, to help a stranded traveler last week.
The officer is Grant Hall, who arrived on the scene not long after the 82-year-old traveler was involved in a vehicle accident on Arkansas 264 in Lowell.
Ruth Corbin, who lives in Louisiana, had flown into Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport and rented a car to drive the last leg of her journey.
Just a few miles from the airport, however, Corbin's rental car collided with another car, stranding her there.
"Something like that just throws me for a loop," Corbin said later. "I was just very nervous and upset."
Not only was she stranded, the Louisiana woman was a full three hours from her intended destination, Mountain Home, and a reunion with her 92-year-old sister.
She was on a mission to see the ailing sister, possibly for the last time, when her trip was interrupted by the accident.
The rental car was totaled, so the officer drove her back to the airport to the rental car company.
"I just walked around the airport and thought and thought, 'What should I do,'" she recounted recently.
She wanted to go on to see her sister but Corbin said she realized she was too upset to drive the rest of the way.
Meanwhile, Hall returned to finish his shift and went home but couldn't forget about Corbin.
He called a phone number she had provided for her family and learned they were having trouble contacting her on her cellphone.
So he decided to go back to the airport.
"Something kept telling me to check on her," Hall said, telling a reporter that he would want someone to help his family if they were similarly stranded.
He found her at the airport about 7 p.m.
"I looked up all of a sudden and saw this guy coming toward me and he looked familiar," Corbin told the reporter. "I about dropped my teeth."
Corbin asked him if he could take her to a hotel.
That would have been service above the call, but Hall told her he wasn't taking her to a hotel but to Mountain Home.
"I almost fainted," Corbin recalled.
Another officer, Sgt. Kris Spangler, joined Hall as he drove his own car that evening to Corbin's niece's house, where her sister lives.
The sister had moved there when she couldn't live on her own anymore.
"We didn't have the opportunity to see her after that," Corbin said. "It has been a couple of years since I saw her last."
Now her health is failing and she does not always respond to people when they talk to her. She didn't recognize Corbin for several days.
"When she did, oh my goodness, chills went all over me and I hugged her real close," Corbin recalled. "It was a wonderfully rewarding experience for me because I got to see her one more time."
Hall's intervention extended Corbin's time with her sister and gave her an unforgettable memory not only of that reunion but also of an uncommon kindness by the Lowell police officers.
We know the story because Corbin wrote a letter to Hall's supervisors to tell them of his actions.
"It says a lot about him," said Lowell police Lt. Paul Pillaro. "He didn't get anything out of it. He wouldn't even take money for gas."
The story is a welcome reminder of the goodness that still shines through people, like this police officer, even as so many headlines are filled with reports of evil.
Brenda Blagg is a freelance columnist and longtime journalist in Northwest Arkansas. Email her at [email protected].
Commentary on 08/30/2015