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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 7, 1994                   TAG: 9409070135
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WOODSTOCK                                 LENGTH: Medium

FAIR'S STRIP SHOW CLOSES, LEAVES

A roving show featuring strippers closed its act at a county fair during the weekend, perhaps drawing the curtain on what was believed to be the last adult peep show at a Virginia county fair.

Show promoter Gary Wayne Housel, 43, of Glenville, Pa., closed his show at the Shenandoah County Fair on Saturday after he and a stripper were charged with violating the state obscene performance law, said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Albert T. Mitchell.

Housel and dancer Deanna M. Williams, 22, of Baltimore were released on $1,000 unsecured bond each. Both were required not to stage further shows as a condition of their bonds, said Mitchell, who is also Woodstock town attorney.

Magistrate E.W. Fadely, who set the bonds, said Housel and his act decided to leave town rather than risk another misdemeanor violation.

``They decided to strike their tent and steal away into the night,'' Fadely said.

The show apparently marked the end of itinerate shows featuring nude or almost nude women performing sexually suggestive dances on Virginia's county fair circuit for some 70 years.

Housel, Williams and three other dancers had been cited on misdemeanor violations of town ordinances Friday. Housel was charged with procuring women to take part in an obscene show.

Also arrested Friday were Housel's wife, Erlind Guerrero Housel, 22, who also dances under the stage name ``Carmalita,'' and two other Baltimore women: Yolanda H. Grice, 21, who dances as ``Rio,'' and Shannon G. Ogozaly, 21, who is also called ``Honey.''

No one was jailed on the local charges.

The crackdown at the Shenandoah County Fair came after a member of a group called the Shenandoah Coalition Against Pornography filed a complaint. The group had tried to shut the show down on grounds that it was obscene. Local police and the sheriff had declined to act on their own but said that they would serve any warrant issued by a magistrate.

The state charges were filed after Commonwealth's Attorney William H. Logan Jr. said he did not believe the show was obscene.

by CNB