Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 26, 1993 TAG: 9307260019
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A gag order in the gay stepson custody case in Roanoke County forced a New York television talk show to make a last-minute shuffle last week.
"The Jane Whitney Show" had planned to tape a segment last Wednesday featuring the custody fight between Michael W. Scott and Sandra O. Scott.
Michael Scott is seeking custody of the couple's 11-year-old son on grounds that her home is unwholesome because her 17-year-old son from a previous marriage is openly gay.
Michael Scott has refused to comment on the case, but Sandra Scott was ready to fly to New York with her older son, Jay McCulley, to appear on "The Jane Whitney Show." The show is syndicated to 80 TV stations nationwide.
The segment was called off when Roanoke County Circuit Judge Kenneth Trabue clamped a gag order on all participants to protect the younger child's privacy.
"We pretty much had to cancel the show and do something else that day," associate producer Laurie Colchamiro said.
The replacement topic: Transsexual Teens.
In need of shelter
People with AIDS in the Roanoke Valley are facing another problem - finding adequate and affordable housing.
It's estimated that between 600 and 700 people in the valley are infected with HIV. Many of them are either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, according to a survey of groups with special housing needs.
The survey included such groups as the mentally ill, elderly, veterans and the physically disabled.
Roanoke housing officials will develop recommendations on providing housing for the HIV-infected as well as other special groups.
Housing officials said a group home is needed for those who are infected but have not reached an advanced stage of the disease. They said there also is a need for an in-patient hospice for those who have only a six-month life expectancy.
Trading places?
Word of the chaotic nature of Boones Mill Town Council meetings has made its way to Fincastle, where the local newspaper, The Herald, made hay with a visit by Boones Mill Mayor Maurice Turner and police Lt. Lynn Frith.
Turner and Frith, as reported by The Herald, attended a recent Fincastle Town Council meeting to see how another small-town government runs its meetings. With a population of 236, Fincastle has just three fewer residents than Boones Mill - yet Fincastle residents do not routinely show up at Town Hall to berate the council, as is the case in Boones Mill.
Turner told The Herald he was surprised to find the Fincastle council meeting was not attended by a single irate resident.
"You all must really have things calm down there," Turner said. "Traditionally, things always seem to be stirred up [in Boones Mill]. I don't know if we have a different brand of people, or what it is.
"We'd love to trade places," he said.
Pounding the pavement
\ Roanoke Vice Mayor Beverly Fitzpatrick knew what he was talking about when he spoke Friday at an open house for displaced workers.
"I looked in my mailbox this morning, and my first severance check from Dominion Bank was not there," Fitzpatrick said. "I may need some counseling much sooner than I thought."
Funded by a $790,000 federal grant, the Community Resource Center will retrain and provide tuition and other services for workers laid off by Dominion Bank and Gardner-Denver.
The center - located off Brambleton Avenue next to the Roanoke County Administration Building - will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday. The phone number is 774-4626.
Some of the 850 Dominion workers whose jobs were eliminated in a merger with First Union Corp. have been hired to fill new jobs. But Fitzpatrick, a former Dominion vice president, is still looking for work.
"I decided maybe I ought to be back here Monday at 8 o'clock," he quipped.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***