When I started working at the Raleigh Grande 8 years ago I never thought I’d still be working there. But working in a theater kind of gets into your blood. The smell of the popcorn, the free movies, the late night conversations about the most random stuff you can think of. I’m sure Mark felt the same way which is why he worked in theaters for so long. He was the head projectionist at the Grande when I started and taught me a lot. A few years ago he was offered another opportunity and he took it. He left the Grande and work to work for Marquee Cinemas in Wake Forest. I had talked to him a could occasions but only went to see the theater and him once. We talked business and it was good to see him. He had been offered a job back at the Grande but was waiting to hear if he would get the soon to open General Manager position with Marquee. I told him it would be a bad move for him to come back to the Grande. We had just been sold to Regal and would soon be sold to yet another as yet un-named company. He was surprised by this new news of having to be sold in the coming months. Well, he was offered and accepted the job as GM with Marquee a few months ago. This past Friday there was an ATTEMPTED robbery at Marquee and Mark was shot and killed in the process. As of Monday all 3 people involved had been caught. One of the bastards put up a good chase but was finally caught in NJ. Of the two teenage boys, one was an employee at the theater. The older guy, it turns out, was the step-father of one of the boys.
There will be a Memorial Service on Thursday night at the theater for Mark. He was the type of guy who would do anything to help out a friend. He was a really nice guys who didn’t deserve to be the victim of such a random act of violence. I can only guess he either recognized the voices of the assailants or didn’t have enough money in the box office to make them happy. For whatever the reason, he didn’t deserve to be killed.