Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 23, 1993 TAG: 9309230129
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
"I'm just gonna sit back and watch for a while. Know what I mean?" he said.
But he has quietly been doing more than passively checking out the lay of the land during his first weeks here. For example:
He now has the town Police Department at full strength, with the hiring of Richard Cook as the newest officer. Cook, who has been working with the Lynchburg Police Department for two years, following the closing of the AT&T plant where he was employed earlier, begins his duties around the end of September.
Gwaltney has started a program to help citizens mark their valuables - things like television sets, computers, stereos and VCRs - with engraving tools available through his office. All it takes is a "VA" followed by the owner's Social Security number, he said, for the National Crime Information Center to see where recovered stolen goods came from.
Even when the numbers are filed off, he said, there are chemical treatments that can restore them.
He is gearing up for Neighborhood Watch programs like the 17 or more he successfully started in Salem, where he started as a patrolman in 1962 and worked up to second in command before his move to Dublin this month.
Residents involved in such programs learn to keep an eye out for trouble at their neighbors' homes, from watching for break-ins to spotting a strange car cruising the area for no apparent reason.
"We want people to get nosey," he said. "We recommend that anything that they see, they call in on."
Gwaltney, 54, was one of 10 applicants considered for the position after Mayor Benny Keister did not reappoint Chief Jim McKinney, who had held the job since mid-1980.
McKinney has since taken a part-time job with the Pulaski County Sheriff's Department, filling in for people who are ill or on vacation and transporting prisoners to hospitals as needed.
Gwaltney has been getting acquainted with the townspeople and businessmen during his first month.
"I haven't met a business person, or a person on the street, or a police or council member I don't think a lot of," he said.
"I'm looking forward to it," he said of the job. "It's a challenge, but it's a good challenge."
Gwaltney, despite an informal country-boy manner of talking, holds a two-year degree in police science and has completed additional classes at the University of Virginia and FBI Academy at Quantico.
He is a Salem native and graduate of Andrew Lewis High School, although he and his wife live near Dublin. He is actually closer to his job now than he was when he worked in Salem.
He is also an unabashed enthusiast about playing marbles. In 1952, at age 12, he won the national marbles championship at Asbury Park, N.J., and was inducted into the National Marbles Hall of Fame in June.
He will still happily get down on his knees with anyone interested in shooting some marbles.
NOTE: Also ran October 7, 1993 in Neighbors West.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***