County Worker Dies After Car Strikes Deer

Susan Farmer, 36, Well Liked In Leesburg, Loudoun Jobs

By Maria Glod

Thursday, October 25, 2001

Susan Farmer, who was Leesburg's public information officer for more than a decade before joining the Loudoun County government, died Tuesday of injuries suffered Monday morning when her car struck a deer, authorities said.

Farmer, 36, of Round Hill, was heading to work about 8:30 a.m. when the accident occurred on Route 7 eastbound near Hill High Orchard, just east of the Route 7 business exit for Round Hill, Virginia State Police said.

Police said Farmer had just rounded a curve when she struck the deer, which came through the windshield of her 1995 Toyota. She suffered severe head trauma.

"There was absolutely no time for her to react," said Virginia State Police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell. Police said Farmer was traveling the speed limit and wearing a seat belt.

News of the accident quickly reached town and county officials and workers who remembered Farmer as a dedicated and capable worker, unfailingly cheerful -- even at late-night meetings.

"Her love for this community came through in everything she did," said Leesburg Mayor B.J. Webb. "She paid wonderful attention to detail, and she made everybody feel involved. She was always one of the people you looked forward to seeing when you got in the office."

Farmer, a former reporter for the Loudoun Times-Mirror and copy editor for the Reston Connection, started working for Leesburg in 1989. She helped to guide the town through a period of enormous growth, handling media inquiries on issues as diverse as town budgets, leaf collection, the grand opening of a water treatment plant and the filming of a made-for-television movie in town.

Farmer also wrote and edited many town brochures and forms, helped to create its Web site and helped town officials prepare speeches.

"She was like my right arm when I was mayor," Jim Clem said. "I always thought of her as a historian. There wasn't an event that Leesburg was involved in that she didn't have a complete history on."

Town officials said Farmer often filled in when another employee was sick or busy. She would take minutes at meetings or prepare documents for the council. "I never found her to be a 9-to-5 person," Clem said. "She was a 9-until-whenever person."

Farmer left town government in 2000 to oversee Loudoun County's cable television franchise, county officials said. "She could do it all," said county spokesman Jim Barnes, Farmer's supervisor. "She could write. She could edit. She could do layout and design."

Friends said Farmer and her husband, Tim, public relations director for the State Arboretum of Virginia, shared a love of the outdoors. They were avid gardeners and often hiked together.

Clem said he would encounter Farmer at Southern States or other local nurseries, where they would pause to brag about their gardens.

During her time in Leesburg, Farmer's pet projects included "2000 by 2000, Plant a Tree for Leesburg," a program that encouraged residents to plant trees and register them with the town. The town planted its 2,000th new tree at the Leesburg Public Safety Building last year, and the program recently was honored by the Virginia Municipal League.

Farmer graduated magna cum laude in 1986 from Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pa., with a bachelor of arts degree in mass communication.

Tagged: car crash, Leesburg, Loudoun County government

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