Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, October 18, 1993                   TAG: 9310180075
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THAT'S THE TICKET

Just one can turn a bleak month into a financial winner.

That's why Civic Center Manager Bob Chapman was upbeat when he gave his report on September's attendance and ticket sales to the Civic Center Commission last week.

\ Aerosmith's Sept. 28 concert generated more than two-thirds of the total ticket sales last month and nearly one-third of the spectators.

Without Aerosmith, September would have been a big loser.

The band attracted 9,750 spectators and rang up $201,321 in ticket sales.

Some country music singers have the same drawing power as rock bands. Chapman expects another big bounce in the monthly numbers when Reba McEntire, a country music star, comes to town Nov. 7.

Chili reception

Virginia didn't fare so hot Oct. 3. in the Championship Chili Cookoff in Reno, Nev. Charlie Whitescarver, general manager of the Norwood Center in Radford, was there cooking in the Last-Chance Chili Cookoff held the night before the big event. But, Whitescarver lamented, our state was not among the chili champs this year.

The cookoff was the culmination of a drive begun Sept. 13 to collect signatures on a petition to make chili America's official food. Roanoke was the first stop in a cross-country trek featuring a motorized stagecoach with a 300-pound copper chili pot on its top.

The campaign, organized by the International Chili Society in Newport Beach, Calif., also was a fund-raiser for the American Red Cross. An estimated $20,000 was raised for the Red Cross.

The winning chili recipe was from Seattle, Wash. Second-, third- and fourth-place winners were from California, Kentucky and Ohio, respectively.

Hunting for votes, but little else

Mary Sue Terry, the Democratic candidate for governor, likes to talk up her hunting background whenever she's trying to reassure sportsmen skeptical of her proposed five-day waiting period for buying handguns.

"When I was 12 years old," she always says, "I was given a .410 bolt-action single-shot shotgun. I was raised in the tradition of hunting."

But how long has it actually been since Terry went hunting?

When finally asked that question last week during a stop in Roanoke, Terry confessed it's been awhile. Since her teen-age years, to be precise.

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