Trey Pennington
How can I write a blog post about Trey?
We only physically met on three occasions. A whole bunch of Skype time. Lots of twitter/facebook banter – when he would tease me for my delight in the lexicon. I doubt there is much I can add to the exceptionall tributes already paid by Scott Gould, Olivier Blanchard and others who knew him so much longer.
But how could I not acknowledge the passing of such a special individual? We called each other friend. So to not look for some words is unthinkable.
Like Minds Exeter Conference introduced me to Trey. Unusually I was taken by the straight guy in a preppy suit. He told stories with a beguilingly soft Southern drawl. Not for him the marketeers’ jargon and sometimes specious generalisations. He spoke his truth with tales of real people who breathed the same air. He struck me as a kind of Garrison Keillor of Social Media. A vital part of the oral tradition. I liked him. He took time to talk to me without glancing over his shoulder to see who else was around.
We bounced things around quite a bit on twitter etc. and again he gave his time, with those special tweets that seem to make eye-contact. We hooked up again at Media 140 Bristol. Instantly comfortable in his company. And we talked then, and later, about the conventional way his website showed him. I saw him more conversationally, as a narrator. Not a businessman. A storyteller. Almost a Norman Rockwell character of our times. Maybe fanciful but I’ll remember him that way.
A kind, personable, warm, honest, generous, open guy. A suicide? What pain must he have been suffering? I learnt he had big troubles and tried to get him to talk about it. Not hard enough I guess but it seemed wrong to press him when he wanted to be private. Even in Social Media not everything has to be ‘out there’. I hope the God he believed in so surley is there for him now.
And I was so looking forward to seeing him this Friday in Lincoln. But not now. Farewell my friend of two years, I would have liked more time with you.
Who will tell the stories now?
Priceless, wonderful words and sentiments. I didn’t know him of course, but his loss is obviously felt by so many and that speaks a lot about him. At least he’s out of the trauma he must have been suffering now.