Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 1, 1993 TAG: 9212310341
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: Staff
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
CRIME, LAYOFFS TOP NEWS
MAJOR crime and major layoffs topped the news in the New River Valley in 1992, according to the staff of the newspaper's New River bureau and readers who sent in ballots.Staffers rated the killing of a Pulaski mother last summer, and related stories of the pizza store manager who called 911 and the arrest of three people, as the top story, followed by the Radford Army Ammunition Plant layoffs.
Readers picked the layoffs as No. 1, followed by the crime spree.
Other stories rated in the top 15:
3. Montgomery County School Board Chairman Dan Schneck quits after the Board of Supervisors, spurred on by an emotional crowd, endorses Christmas and Easter as official school policy for holidays. The School Board had voted unanimously to substitute winter and spring.
4. Spring rains flood Virginia Tech's campus, causing damages estimated at $4 million.
5. Voters pass a multimillion-dollar bond issue for higher education, including construction projects at Tech and Radford University. Readers rated this one No. 3.
6. New River Industries buys the old and abandoned AT&T plant, without the promise of new jobs.
7. Pulaski County High School wins state football championship.
8. Rick Cook takes over as Giles County treasurer, and a year of bickering with the Board of Supervisors and other problems ensues.
9. John David Lafon of Giles County, serving a life term for the murder of Virginia Tech student Meredith Mergler, is named a suspect in the murder of Tech student Andrea Walnes.
10. Voters re-elect Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, to another term in Congress.
11. First year of Montgomery County Sheriff Ken Phipps' term marked by indictment of chief deputy and investigator.
12. A Radford woman is verified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest person living in America.
12. [A tie] Radford University professor is fired after two students file sexual harassment complaints.
14. Jefferson Mills in Pulaski turns a profit under its new owners, all former employees, after years of losses.
15. The "Welcome to Shawsville" sign comes tumbling down.
15. [Another tie] Pulaski High School football fans pray on their own after official pregame praying is stopped because of a Supreme Court ruling. Readers rated this one No. 10.
\ Among the readers' write-in votes for top stories were one each for:
The serious injury of George Bell, a candidate for the Republican nomination for Congress, in a car wreck last April, forcing him out of the race, and
Virginia Tech's "football failures."
"We lost or tied six games by a total of 12 points," Coach Frank Beamer said of his 2-8-1 season. "It wasn't lost or tied six games by 112 points."
\ In the top story for 1992, three people were charged last June with the murder of Lorna Crockett of Pulaski, a Christiansburg shoe store manager. Police arrested the three suspects after pizza store manager Stuart Arbuckle phoned 911 after someone tried to rob him the same night.
Crockett, 32, a mother of three boys, had been abducted and shot to death a few hours earlier after she had made a night bank deposit.
The three, also facing other robbery charges in Pulaski County, are in the Montgomery County Jail awaiting trial for Crockett's death.
It was quite a year for Arbuckle, 25, of Radford, who married in early 1992.
After making the 911 call, he was fired as manager of the Blacksburg Domino's Pizza for violating policy by making a bank deposit at night.
He was unemployed for two months, found out his wife was expecting, found a new friend in the widower of the murdered Pulaski woman, found new jobs, and became the proud father of a son. He also was on national TV.
Two of the suspects, William Ray Smith Jr., 18, of Pulaski and Paul William Morehead, 20, of Dublin, were indicted on charges of capital murder in Crockett's death.
Katina Lynn Zelenak, 20, of Christiansburg, was charged with murder.
They each face additional charges including using a firearm, robbing and abducting Crockett and attempting to rob and conspiring to rob Arbuckle.
The freshly unemployed Arbuckle was considered a hero by many, including police and Mike Crockett, the husband of the dead shoe store manager.
Arbuckle received the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police Citizen Award for Outstanding Contribution to Law Enforcement in the category of responsible civic involvement. The New River Valley chapter of the Virginia Crime Clinic gave him a plaque for "Outstanding Bravery and Citizen Dedication."
The tabloid TV show "A Current Affair" came to the New River Valley to tape Arbuckle's story, interviewing the victim's husband and police, and re-enacting the 911 call.
Trials for the three murder suspects are tentatively scheduled for the spring.
\ Put simply, 1992 was a year of gloom at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, a major New River Valley employer.
About 300 workers lost their jobs at the arsenal in 1992 and 730 more learned they will be out of work Jan. 20.
Hercules, the government contractor for the arsenal, produces propellant for the Army. With the Cold War over, the demand for munitions has declined.
While the layoffs were no surprise, they were different from past layoffs that affected mostly union production workers. The latest cuts announced in November included 267 salaried employees.
At the end of January, the arsenal will be left with 2,044 workers, compared to about 4,500 in 1989.
Despite the layoffs, the Radford plant is better off than many of the nation's 12 other ammunition plants. Six of them will close by 1995.
The future of the arsenal is still a bit uncertain.
Hercules has announced plans to pursue commercial contracts. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said he is confident that employment levels at the Radford plant will increase.
But Hercules officials weren't as confident.
Plant Manager Skip Hurley didn't rule out the possibility of more layoffs, saying it depends on the workload at the plant.
\ One of the biggest public controversies of the year in Montgomery County initially may have been caused by a misunderstanding.
On Dec. 14, roughly 300 county residents besieged a Board of Supervisors meeting to protest a change in the name of the county school "Christmas" and "Easter" holidays to "winter break" and "spring break."
The supervisors passed a resolution supporting the traditional Christians holiday names. That, in part, caused School Board Chairman Daniel Schneck of Christiansburg to resign from the board.
Last spring, Schneck proposed a change in the holiday names in the section of the School Board's policy manual that governs employees on a 12-month contract. His idea was to be sensitive to those employees who might not practice Christian religions.
It was not a novel idea. The school calendar followed by teachers and students has referred to "winter break" for the past five years and to "spring break" for at least 10 years.
However, the holiday names did not become an issue in Montgomery County until a Dec. 4 news story in the Roanoke Times & World-News about a controversy in Frederick County over the change of school holiday names there.
The story included Schneck's remark's about last spring's action in Montgomery County. Although Schneck's goal was to be sensitive to all religions, the news story inadvertently misquoted his comment about the schools serving all the citizens of the county. His statement was later clarified.
Next, members of a Montgomery County Chapter of the Rev. Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and others plan to take their protest of the name change to the next School Board meeting on Tuesday night.
\ In May, heavy rains covered the Virginia Tech campus and filled the gymnasium and the Donaldson Brown Center with 3 feet of water. Damage was estimated at more than $4 million.
Meetings and conferences normally held in the Donaldson Brown Center were moved for several months while employees scrubbed everything from floors to plants.
The pool and racquetball courts at the War Memorial Gym were closed for the summer.
Meanwhile, the town and Tech have held meetings to find a way to prevent future flooding. A study is under way.
The latest development is a lawsuit filed by Tech's insurance company, Continental Casualty, against the town of Blacksburg to recover damages. The suit claims Blacksburg's storm drains were inadequate and responsible for the damage.
Town Attorney Richard Kaufman said the town regretted any flood damage at Tech, but does not feel responsible in any way.
\ The state's economy got a jump-start this year when voters approved $613 million bond referendums for higher education, parks and mental health.
About three-fourths of the voters were in favor of borrowing the money so building projects could get started at cheaper construction rates. There had been no state-funded construction on campuses for years.
About $472 million will go toward higher education in the state, money that will be welcomed by colleges coming off three years of budget cuts.
Construction on an addition to Radford University's McConnell Library is expected to begin soon. The project was the first in the area to go out to bid.
Proponents have claimed the bond issue will create an estimated 3,600 jobs.
"All of us in higher education can be both pleased and grateful," Virginia Tech President James McComas said when the referendum passed.
\ After almost three years of sitting dormant, the former Fairlawn AT&T plant was sold in October.
New River Industries bought the 549,000-square-foot plant and a small portion of the 743 acres surrounding it, but the company has no plans to hire any new workers for the facility.
New River Industries, which makes fibers for coats, linings, taffetas and satins, spent about $4 million on 80 new weaving machines to put in the plant.
Plant Manager Larry Maust said the company hopes to begin production at the facility by the end of January.
The plant had sat vacant since January 1990 when AT&T laid off more than 1,000 workers, moving their jobs to plants in Texas and Mexico.
\ The middle of December was officially designated "Cougar Week" in Pulaski County.
Everyone there knew why.
The high school football team, the Cougars, nailed the state Group AAA Division 6 football title Dec. 12.
With the backing of its very vocal fans, the Southwest Virginia football powerhouse pasted Thomas Dale High School of Chester, 35-20, to win its first state championship.
"It is undoubtedly the hardest-hitting football team that I ever coached," Cougar Coach Joel Hicks said of the champs.
As usual, the team took plenty of friends along to help celebrate its victory.
On a day so cold the point totals on the scoreboard froze after halftime, an estimated 3,500 Pulaski County fans - some with their faces painted Cougar colors - followed their team to the title game.
There would have been more, but some were sick from sitting through the Cougars chilly semifinal victory in Fairfax the week before.
"We actually have some people who couldn't come today because they got pneumonia last week," said Hicks the day the Cougars won the title.
"Those people are just like family," said linebacker Billy Ingles, whose fumble recovery against Dale with 2 1/2 minutes left in the game helped seal the victory and the title.
"How 'bout those Cougars?" said Pulaski Mayor Gary Hancock at a celebratory gathering in the school gymnasium the day after the victory. Hancock wore a "Cougar Country" sweatshirt.
A reception was held later for team members and their families.
Meanwhile, to show their appreciation, The Touchdown Club football boosters gave each player a shirt labeling them the state champs. The shirts were printed three days before the title game.
Talk about believing.
\ On Jan. 1, 1992, newly elected Giles County Treasurer Rick Cook, a Narrows contractor, took office.
Trouble quickly followed.
His only full-time deputy quit in February.
A few days later, state police confirmed they were investigating the loss of some money ($200, others said) that vanished from the treasurer's office during the transition between Cook and former treasurer Irene O'Dell.
No charges were ever filed.
In March, Cook was slapped with a defamation lawsuit from Jane Tabor - whom Cook had hired, then fired before she had worked a day. Cook told a member of the Board of Supervisors - falsely - that Tabor had stolen money from a previous employer, Tabor has charged in her lawsuit.
The suit is still pending.
Also among Cook's troubles was a continuing dispute with the county's Board of Supervisors over his alleged failure to file timely financial reports. The dispute went to court last summer - where a judge said Cook must, indeed, file the reports.
His troubles continued. Cook's office has been through several deputy treasurers under his tenure. And auditors despaired of conducting the annual audit last summer, saying there were not enough records.
Shortly afterward, the county contracted with Richmond auditor John Montoro to "reconstruct" the books in the treasurer's office.
Estimated cost: up to $40,000.
Cook, meanwhile, has blamed much of the trouble on political opposition, accusing the board of waging a campaign of "sabotage and harassment."
Then, in September, Cook and board members met in a closed session - a meeting Board Chairman Bobby Compton later described as "very congenial."
"I think it will be a lot better henceforth," added Supervisor George Hedrick.
There has been no public animosity between Cook and board members since.
\ John David Lafon, a Giles County man convicted last year of abducting and killing a Virginia Tech student, was named as a prime suspect last summer in the murder of another Tech student, Andrea Walnes.
The skeletal remains of Walnes, an 18-year-old Tech sophomore, were found in Jefferson National Forest in Giles County on Nov. 1, 1991, four months after she was last seen on July 4 inner-tubing near McCoy Falls on the New River.
Lafon is serving a life sentence in prison after being convicted in October 1991 of abducting and murdering Meredith Mergler, another Tech student.
The body of Mergler, who was abducted in 1987, was found in October 1988 in a cistern near the Giles County community of Eggleston. She had been shot in the head.
\ In November, 9th District voters returned Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, to Congress for a sixth term.
Boucher, 46, defeated Republican Gary Weddle, a Radford businessman and city councilman, with 63 percent of the vote.
Weddle, 31, was one of three candidates who had sought the GOP nomination to oppose Boucher. George Bell of Blacksburg was knocked out of the race when he was seriously injured in an April car wreck.
Weddle waged an aggressive campaign against Boucher, but was seriously handicapped by a lack of funding and name recognition that money can buy. Boucher outspent Weddle by more than 5-to-1: $518,765 to $93,768.
\ For Montgomery County Sheriff Ken Phipps, 1992 was not an easy first year in office.
In the spring, Phipps - who defeated long-time Sheriff Louis Barber in the November 1991 election - ran into budget trouble after the state Compensation Board cut off funding for eight of his jailers.
But the news that rocked Phipps' office was the indictment in October of his chief deputy and an undercover investigator on charges of conflict of interest and obtaining money under false pretenses.
In June, Montgomery County Circuit Judge Kenneth Devore had named Salem Commonwealth's Attorney Fred King to investigate a possible conflict of interest in Phipps' office.
On Oct. 1, a county grand jury indicted Phipps' chief deputy, Roy Bolen, 42, on five misdemeanor counts of violating the Virginia Conflict of Interest Act and one felony charge of obtaining money under false pretenses.
Also indicted was investigator Rickey Lynn Hodge, 33, on one conflict charge and one charge of obtaining money under false pretenses.
The indictment against Bolen was related to his ownership and operation of a business known as Autoworks Service Center on U.S. 11 near Radford and the repair of sheriff's office vehicles at the garage.
Phipps fired Bolen, a former state policeman like himself, the same day the grand jury returned its indictments. Bolen has yet to stand trial.
The charges against Hodge were related to the sale of a car owned by Hodge and another person to the county as an undercover car.
In December Hodge pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unlawfully interfering with the property rights of the Montgomery Board of Supervisors. He was given a 12-month suspended jail term, placed on unsupervised probation and ordered to pay the county restitution up to $2,000.
Hodge later quit his job at the Sheriff's Department.
\ A Radford University professor was fired this year after two female students filed sexual harassment complaints against him.
Patrick Ireland, who has been at the university since 1973, became the first professor in the university's history to be fired as a result of sexual harassment complaints.
Ireland appealed to the Board of Visitors, but the board upheld a panel's November decision.
\ Margaret Skeete was born in a little town in Texas in 1878. Last year, 114 years later, the Radford resident was verified by the Guinness world records folks as the oldest person living in America.
Skeete, who was born in Texas near Corpus Christi, has lived with her daughter's family in Radford since the 1950s. Her birthday in October was a media event, which daughter Verne Taylor said was covered by television news crews from Roanoke and West Virginia and by CNN. Area newspapers covered it as well.
Confirmation of Skeete's age came too late for the former dressmaker's name to be included in Guinness' current book of American records. Still, Guinness did include Skeete's name in a supplement to the book, Taylor said. They also sent Skeete a certificate verifying her status as America's oldest person.
\ Jefferson Mills in Pulaski saw its business turn around in 1992 after a decade of losing money.
It made a $500,000 profit under its first year of new ownership after losing more than $1 million in 1991 and even more than that the year before.
Six of its employees purchased the 54 1/2-year-old yarn-processing plant in downtown Pulaski two years ago. Despite the not-great economy during 1992, they started putting it back on its financial feet.
Industry response was encouraging. They got 40 additional or expanded customer orders during the year.
David Spangler, the new president and one of the six employees who purchased the company, has said Jefferson Mills is likely to see as much change in 1993 as it did in 1992. The other new owners are Denny Pace, Charles Ibach Jr., Charles "Bo" Ibach III, Bill Lovell and Joel Wiggins.
\ Is it Shawsville or is it Elliston?
When the Shawsville Ruritan Club erected its "welcome" sign last summer on a stretch of U.S. 460 known locally as the Elliston Straightaway, the border war began.
The words began to fly.
And then the wood chips began to fly.
On a Friday night late in November, somebody - presumably an Elliston somebody - cut the pretty sign down.
Neither community has any legal borders. But Elliston residents think their next door neighbors were attempting an annexation.
Shawsville residents, on the other hand, insist the welcome sign was not meant to show where Shawsville begins - but only to take advantage of a pretty stretch of highway.
The sign, which was left in the median when it was cut down, is back in the possession of Ruritan Club members.
Stay tuned.
\ Last fall, Pulaski County football fans proved it: The U.S. Supreme Court did not ban voluntary prayer at school athletic events. The estimates are that several hundred people attending home games in October prayed the Lord's Prayer together after a "thought for the evening" over the public address system. The thought for the evening, given by someone chosen by the school's student government, was introduced as a substitute for a school-sponsored pregame prayer Sept. 18. School officials made the change because of the June 24 Supreme Court ruling involving prayer in school, especially after someone informed them that the ruling affected prayers at athletic events, as well as activities such as graduation ceremonies. That someone also hinted that Pulaski County might be monitored for a test case.
Keywords:
YEAR 1992