Story by Chris Graham

The inaugural issue of The New Dominion included a picture of “Evan Almighty” star Morgan Freeman sitting on a police motorcycle during a break in filming in downtown Waynesboro.

Turns out that there’s more to the picture than meets the eye - as I learned back at the January launch party that served as the magazine’s formal entree into the commercial-publishing world.

“That’s one of our motorcycles,” Staunton businessman and civic leader Bruce Elder tells me while flipping through the January 2007 issue of The New Dominion at the launch party.

Which brings us to the tale of how it was that Freeman ended up sitting on a Staunton Police Department police motorcycle - and how city leaders are hoping that the photo that ran in The New Dominion will boost the novelty value of both of the motorcycles used in the filming of the upcoming summer blockbuster.

“This is a real opportunity for Staunton - and I’m hoping that we can get some promotion out of it locally and maybe even nationally, and then offer the bikes for sale on eBay,” Elder says.

I’m getting ahead of myself here.

The motorcycles had been effectively retired from use a few years ago, according to Staunton police chief Jim Williams.

“The thought process when they were put in was to have them more in the downtown area - and they just didn’t work out too well as far as that was concerned,” Williams says.

“I had people leave who were motorcycle-certified,” Williams says. “I sent some people to school to replace them - and one of the guys got hurt training on them.

“They really just didn’t work out as we had hoped they would. And they were very, very expensive to keep running - you’ve got more insurance, that kind of thing,” Williams says.

This gets us to the part of the story where Elder, the owner of the Staunton-based Antique and Classic Automobiles and a member of Staunton City Council, is on the phone with a movie-industry friend who wants to know if Elder can help him get a hold of some police motorcycles to be used in the filming of “Evan Almighty.”

“I was aware of the fact that we had some in Staunton that hadn’t been used in some time,” Elder says.

Elder called Williams to inquire about the availability of the motorcycles - and let him in on what he was thinking about regarding the eventual sale of the bikes.

“Now that they’ve been used in a movie, and most importantly, used by the star, Morgan Freeman, they’re now a movie prop. So hopefully they will bring substantially more than they would just as used motorcycles from a local police department,” Elder says.

Williams paints himself as being “somewhat pessimistic” that the city will be able to pull much more from the eventual sale of the motorcycles than it otherwise would have been able to get for them on the auction block.

“People are telling me that it will bring in more as a movie prop than it will as a police motorcycle - but the timing has to be right. The movie is coming out in July - so what we’re thinking is probably May or June, something like that, we say, Hey, own a piece of something from ‘Evan Almighty,’ ” Williams says.

“And even then, I’m not sure it’s going to be all that much a big deal in the end,” Williams says.

Elder is hoping to add to the luster of the motorcycles - by efforting to get Freeman to sign the bikes.

“Maybe if Mr. Freeman knew that it would help a rural police department, he would assent to doing that,” Elder says.

“I still hold out hope that maybe we can pull something like that off,” Elder says.

Filed under: 7-April 2007 Issue