Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 29, 1993 TAG: 9311290009
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Thursday, Nov. 25, 5 p.m. Just about the time most folks would be dolloping the whipped cream on the pumpkin pie.
But the newsroom phones were ringing and ringing.
"What time are they going to light the tree?" the callers asked.
Some of the folks said they'd called a radio station first, where the deejay suggested calling the newspaper to find out when Roanoke's annual Christmas tree lighting festivities would begin.
Hmmm . . . Certainly seems we'd be a logical place to find such information. But we just didn't know.
Put the callers on hold at first. Then promised to call back when we found out.
Thus began an exhaustive investigation to locate someone in the know about such things.
Tried to track down Laban Johnson. No answer at the office. Not listed in the white pages. Tried to find Michelle Bono. No answer.
We even called David Bowers at home. Answering machine.
Finally, as we cruised the Roanoke government listings in the phone book, it popped right out.
There it was - listed right below "tree care" - a "tree emergency" listing.
"At 7 o'clock," answered Jeanette Law, a public works employee staffing the emergency dispatch center phones in the Municipal Building.
She says she had no idea there even was a tree emergency listing in the phone book.
"I just happen to know that's when they're doing it," she said.
Despite the holiday, a dreadful cold and laryngitis, Bowers did return our call. But Howard Musser filled in at the big tree lighting.
The trouble with Harry
The Christmas tree investigation overshadowed Wednesday's efforts to track down Harry Connick Jr.
The night before, Connick had appeared on the Tonight show. When Jay Leno asked where he'd be for Thanksgiving, Harry told him he'd be in Roanoke.
Visiting his sister, who lives here. Somewhere.
Our last Harry Connick Jr. sighting was last year, when he arrived for his sister's wedding.
Our search began and ended with scouring the wedding announcements from last spring's Celebrations sections.
We briefly considered staking out the airport.
Briefly.
So we can't tell you whether he was traveling - as he usually does - with Victoria's Secret model Jill Goodacre.
Sorry.
A full house
National trends about young black men without role models got kicked back a notch in Roanoke last week.
The YMCA Family Center's annual father-son banquet, fighting to regain the crowds it drew in the 1950s, attracted 291 men and boys - more than in years. Many were boys being raised without fathers and sponsored at the banquet by churches, clubs and individual men.
"We used every table, every chair in the house," said program director Millard Bolden. Last year, 230 came to the dinner.
Old horses never die
And now, finally, some light news out of VMI: The college made "Jeopardy!"
Seems host Alex Trebek gave the answer: "The VMI Museum has one of these\ stuffed and mounted which belonged to Stonewall Jackson." The question? "What is a horse?"
Little Sorrel lasted 23 years after the general was killed in 1862, then went on to quite the afterlife. After the horse died and the taxidermist visited, he went on display at the Old Soldiers Home in Richmond. In 1949, the horse was given to the VMI Museum by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Even VMI spokesman Mike Strickler, swamped during the college's recent flurry of litigation, heralded the Nov. 16 television event. First line of his faxed news release: "FOOLED YOU, IT'S NOT THE COURT CASE THIS TIME."
Wedding bells ahead
About 18 months after the death of his wife, Lorraine, from breast cancer, Frank Smusz is engaged - to a nurse who works at the same bone-marrow transplant clinic at Duke University Medical Center where Lorraine was treated for her disease.
However, Smusz did not know the nurse, Cheri Towner, when Lorraine was treated at Duke in 1990 and 1991. In fact, Towner didn't work on the bone-marrow unit at the time.
They met in October in Washington, D.C., at a reunion/lobbying trip of bone-marrow transplant patients sponsored by Duke.
Smusz, 36, said he proposed to Towner, 27, on bended knee at the Mill Mountain Star.
Towner lives in Durham, but she is originally from Galax. Smusz, who lives near Fincastle in Botetourt County, said she will move to Virginia. They are tentatively planning an August wedding.
Lorraine Smusz died in March 1992 when her breast cancer returned after she underwent the controversial bone-marrow transplant that her insurance company, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Virginia, would not cover.
Blue Cross said the treatment for breast cancer was experimental and had not been proved safe and effective. Many doctors think, however, it is the leading treatment for women in the late stages of breast cancer.
The Smuszes raised much of the money for Lorraine's treatment through donations, and led a public awareness campaign on the Blue Cross position toward the treatment. The Smuszes also filed a lawsuit against the insurance company, which hasn't been resolved.
Frank Smusz has continued to lobby on behalf of breast cancer issues since Lorraine's death. He also runs an electrical contracting business and is raising their two sons, Brian, 8, and Kevin, 5.
by CNB