By Elizabeth Jia
WUSA9
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Twenty-year-old Brian Carter is the recipient of The Vantagepoint Public Employee Memorial Scholarship, a fund dedicated to family members of public servants fallen in the line of duty.
Carter will be a junior this fall at Salisbury University. His father, John Carter, a DC firefighter died fighting a 3-alarm grocery store blaze in Northwest DC on October 24, 1997. Carter fell through a weakened floor.
"[The scholarship] keeps the memory alive. He’s not here, but he’s still helping out and providing,” Carter says.
Carter says he usually does not like the spotlight, but he had to come to the District Fire Station to show his appreciation.
His mother, Debra Carter Ketchum, is all smiles as she sees her son as one of 23 recipients nationwide of this scholarship this year.
“I’m just so proud of him,” she says. She had told Channel 9 two days after the fire, how she had to break the news to her then 8-year-old son, that dad “had gotten into a terrible accident.”
Carter says even though he’s a finance major, he entertains the idea of working in the fire department. His grandfather and uncle are also firefighters.
Republished with permission from WUSA9.