Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 26, 1993 TAG: 9312230106
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Motion was predominant. Events swiftly materialized, swirled about, produced a flap or two and disappeared.
Some happenings were environmental, such as blizzards and thunderstorms; others were created by bicycles or motor homes.
Other days you felt the passing of peoples' lives, the breezy rhetoric of free speech or a gusty cheer by partisan sports fans.
Time seemed to dart by during 1993 with particularly strong force.
\ Goings and comings characterized the lives of James McComas and Dale Shrader during 1993.
McComas stood before a microphone on a somber September afternoon and told the crowd assembled on Virginia Tech's Drill Field he was resigning immediately as the university's president.
His doctor said it was best, McComas said, to step down and focus on chemotherapy for his recently diagnosed cancer.
"It's all happening very fast," said one school administrator.
There was much praise for McComas, 64, Tech's president since 1988, and a few tears.
Affable as usual, despite being haggard from surgery, he expressed his love for Virginia Tech and its people, then departed for Ohio and the support of his family.
Tech, too, looked inward for his replacement.
The university turned to Paul Torgersen to replace McComas, first appointing the interim dean of the engineering school as interim president, then making the appointment permanent in December.
\ Shrader's homecoming to Narrows was also unexpected.
In September, the army helicopter he piloted was hit by gunfire over Mogadishu, Somalia. Three crew members were killed.
Shrader sustained burns and a broken wrist. He and his co-pilot survived the crash, but had to exchange gunfire with hostile Somalis to do so.
By the time he got home in November, the glare of international publicity had gone away. But the townsfolk of Narrows, where Shrader grew up, hadn't forgotten.
They welcomed and honored him as a hero, with yellow ribbons, banners, patriotic music and speeches.
"I hope I do them honor," Shrader said.
\ That giant swooshing sound in Blacksburg was the noise of two cruising hordes passing through town.
First, in May, the Tour Du Pont - America's premier long-distance bicycle race - used The Mall at Virginia Tech as the starting line for a day's leg of the 11-stage, 1,100-mile event.
A crowd of more than 10,000 watched on a bright spring Saturday morning as 109 cyclists set off, headed for a hilly journey through Montgomery and Pulaski counties toward Beech Mountain, N.C.
The race was broadcast on ESPN, and Blacksburg got a brief ray of festive national limelight - about as quick as it takes a bicycle racer to hit the town limits.
In August, another group of larger, motorized travelers arrived. Caravans of motor coaches, all members of the Family Motor Coach Association, rolled onto the Tech campus for their annual national convention.
All told, more than 5,000 recreational vehicles carrying 10,000 FMCA members came and parked on every square inch of grass or pavement they could reach.
The four-day gathering was like Woodstock for the well-heeled - a tribute to retirement, the internal combustion engine, the open road and creature comforts.
None of the motor homes was shabby and some of them were downright opulent; one mansion-on-wheels sold for more than $800,000.
Traffic was pretty intense for a few days, but estimates were that the gathering pumped more than $10 million into the local economy - so everyone went away happy.
\ Nature had two big days during 1993, reminding many area residents of who's boss.
In mid-March, a late-season storm unloaded up to 30 inches of snow, whipped and frozen by icy winds. The Blizzard of '93 paralyzed the region, blocking roads, knocking out electrical service, collapsing roofs and claiming 10 Western Virginia lives.
It was the deepest snow in years, keeping several school systems closed for more than a week.
About two months and a full season later, a double-whammy Friday afternoon thunderstorm once again played havoc with trees and utility lines.
Winds during the June 4 storm were measured in gusts of 80 mph. Hail flew like icy shrapnel. Power was out for days to homes and businesses.
But most-victimized were many large, stately trees, particularly on the Virginia Tech and Radford University campuses. The gale snapped them like pencils.
\ Two New River Valley residents on opposite ends of their lives received national recognition.
Margaret Skeete - America's oldest person - celebrated her 115th birthday Oct. 28.
Skeete, who lives in Radford, celebrated with cake and cards and flowers.
She's hard of hearing and doesn't see very well, but Skeete still gets around with the aid of a walker.
And she had some sage advice for longevity: "Don't get any exercise, don't drink any water, don't eat any green vegetables. But eat plenty of sweets."
Young Peter Gwazdauskas had a party in May, and his friend Oscar came.
That's "Oscar" as in Academy Awards.
Peter, 11, who has Down syndrome, was the star of the year's best documentary, "Educating Peter."
It's about the experiences of Peter and his third-grade classmates at Gilbert Linkous Elementary School in Blacksburg during his first year in a mainstream classroom.
On May 6, they threw a big premiere party for "Educating Peter," and the film's producers brought the honest-to-goodness Oscar with them.
Peter's triumph helped the Gwazdauskas family deal with a personal tragedy. His older brother, Jim, died of injuries received earlier in a traffic accident on the same day Peter's story earned the Academy Award.
\ Passions were strong and heart-felt as citizens on opposite philosophical sides of a school holiday name controversy gathered at the Christiansburg High School auditorium on an April night.
They came to witness the Montgomery County School Board's vote on whether or not to restore "Christmas" and "Easter" to the school calendar's winter and spring breaks.
Some told the School Board during the tense meeting that the removal of the religious names represented a moral decline; others said secular names respected diversity of faiths.
The Board voted 7-2 to keep Christmas and Easter off the calendar, but the controversy lingered.
Many of those dissatisfied with the board's decision participated in a successful petition drive that put changing the method of selecting school board members on the ballot.
In November, Montgomery County voters overwhelmingly voted to change from an appointed to an elected school board. Voters in Giles and Floyd counties also approved the change.
Also on Election Day, Montgomery County voters approved bonds to build a county health and social services building and to improve and expand the Blacksburg library, where books were soaked by a leaky roof during an October thunderstorm.
Voters also elected Blacksburg veterinarian Jim Shuler to replace Del. Joan Munford, D-Blacksburg, who retired. Shuler, a Democrat, defeated Republican Nick Rush, a member of the Montgomery Board of Supervisors.
\ Three accidents involving small aircraft occurred in the area during 1993, one in a remote area, the other in a field near houses and businesses, the third 20 feet from a residence.
During Labor Day weekend, 48-year-old Lucy Rosbe of Richmond died when the plane in which she was riding crashed on Salt Pond Mountain near Mountain Lake.
It took rescue workers hours to locate the wreckage in the wooded, mountainous terrain. Freeing the four passengers and carrying them to emergency helicopters was also difficult for emergency workers.
More fortunate was student pilot Thomas Lamar Altland, who walked away after crash landing and flipping his plane Dec. 9.
Altland, of Spring Grove, Pa., was on his last solo flight when he lost power and tried to land in a field near the Farmhouse restaurant in Christiansburg.
Leonard Romanik also lived to tell of his bad luck. On Nov. 2, about 10 minutes after take-off, his plane's engine failed.
The pilot managed to put the aircraft down on the ground about 20 feet from Lonnie Keith's house in Floyd County.
"He did a splendid job of setting that plane down," Keith said.
\ Rescue squad members in Giles County had to recover bodies of two of their own after a Sept. 9 mining accident in Giles County.
Two miners, Brian Keith Ratcliffe, 28, of Pearisburg and Timothy Wayne Francis, 41, of Peterstown, W.Va., died when a 150-ton chunk of roof fell at the APG Lime Corp. plant near Kimballton.
A federal investigation said the accident could have been avoided if safety regulations had been followed.
\ It was a year of sweet redemption for Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech's football coach.
During his six-year tenure, Beamer had accumulated much goodwill but not enough victories for some rabid Hokies. Coming off a two-win season, his job was reportedly on the line unless he produced a winner in 1993.
The coach and his players responded. Quarterback Maurice DeShazo tossed flocks of touchdown passes, Center Jim Pyne was named All-American, and the Hokies finished 8-3.
All losses were away games to nationally ranked opponents; best of all, Tech defeated bitter rival Virginia in Charlottesville, 20-17.
Now it's on to the Independence Bowl in Louisiana on Dec. 31 against Indiana. It will be Tech's first bowl game since 1986.
\ There were also big winners among New River Valley high school athletic teams.
On one weekend, five New River Valley teams were playing in state or regional championship games.
Girls' basketball teams from Blacksburg and Floyd County high schools won state championships.
In football, the Giles County Spartans won the Group A state title, but the Pulaski County Cougars couldn't repeat as Group AAA football champs, losing to Annandale, 14-7, in a frigid wind.
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Keywords:
YEAR 1993
by CNB