Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 5, 1994 TAG: 9409060059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Roanoke Poetry Slam team that trekked to Asheville, N.C., for the national slam competition two weeks ago found out that talent wasn't enough to get them to the finals.
Some good old-fashioned luck might have helped.
The Roanoke team - Patricia Johnson, Nick Glennon, Julia Delbridge and Siobhan Lowe-Matuk - drew two of the toughest teams for its opening matchups: hometown favorite Asheville and Chicago, the town where poetry slamming was invented. They lost to both teams by narrow margins.
Johnson fared the best in the individual competition, finishing seventh overall.
"Our team made a confident and impressive showing, displaying talent, warmth and class," Glennon said in the Roanoke Poetry Slam newsletter. "Remember: The points are not the point. The poetry is the point."
Beware men at work
Just eight months into the year, 16 people have died in Virginia in highway work zones, including nine during August.
According to a news release from the Virginia Department of Transportation, the worst year for work zone fatalities was 1986, when 24 people were killed.
The most recent work zone death was Aug. 30 in Rockbridge County, when a woman lost control of her car and collided head-on with a construction dump truck, the release said.
Most of the other fatalities were in the Richmond, Norfolk and Northern Virginia areas.
For Labor Day weekend, VDOT shut down all interstate work zones Friday and will reopen them Tuesday morning.
Information on area work zones is available 24 hours a day on InfoLine extension 7623. Call InfoLine at 981-0100 in the Roanoke area and 382-0200 in the New River Valley.
Students would have liked a say
The debate over the need for a new Cave Spring High School in Roanoke County occurred during the summer break, but students kept abreast of the issue - and many have strong opinions on it now that they are back in school.
"You can't go down the halls because they are so crowded," said Josh Plott, a junior, on opening day last week. "There is just not enough space for people to walk down the hall. You have to twist and turn."
In the cafeteria, hundreds of students crunch together at long tables, using every available chair.
Patrick Stanley, eating lunch with several friends, also believes that a new school is needed. "Just try to go down the hall during the break between classes," he said, ``and you'll see what it's like.''
His views were shared by many students interviewed during their lunch break.
Janelle Blankenship, a senior, said a new school won't help her, but it will benefit future students. "I'll be gone after this year, and the crowded conditions will remain unless they get a new school."
County voters will not have an opportunity this fall to decide whether they will approve a bond referendum for a new $20 million high school.
Supervisors Bob Johnson and Ed Kohinke favored a bond referendum, but the other three supervisors opposed it for various reasons, including the 8-cent increase in the real-estate tax rate that would be needed to finance a bond issue.
No exoneration yet
A federal judge was sympathetic but concluded that Edward Dickenson of Wise County lacked sufficient grounds to overturn his dishonorable discharge from the Army.
After his release from a Korean prisoner-of-war camp in 1953, Dickenson was court-martialed for collaborating with the enemy, accused of informing on fellow prisoners to make things easier on himself.
Dickenson, who had been in Korea for two months when he was captured in 1950, has fought his conviction for years and filed the federal lawsuit in 1993. He had claimed he has new evidence exonerating him and sought an honorable discharge.
U.S. District Judge Glen Williams dismissed the suit and advised Dickenson to pursue his case through the proper military channels.
Reflecting on the reasons for which Dickenson had been convicted, Williams noted that the "mores and standards" of military conduct have changed since the Korean War.
In Desert Storm, for instance, U.S. airmen who were captured went on television within 24 hours to denounce U.S. participation in the war, and their actions were accepted by the U.S. military and others as a way to survive their captivity, Williams wrote.
But Dickenson must be judged in the context of the Korean War and not by 1990s standards, Williams said.
"Perhaps Corporal Dickenson was born too early and became a drafted soldier in the wrong war at the wrong time," the judge mused.
by CNB