Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 16, 1994 TAG: 9401170226
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: New River Valley bureau
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Long
Grimes was on her way to GIV Injectables in Bland County, where she works as a telemarketer, on the morning of Sept. 20 with her niece when a car passed them. It was a car she had heard described on her police scanner over the weekend.
``I don't keep it on all the time,'' she said. ``Usually I'll listen to it to see what's going on. I guess I'm a little nosey,'' she said, laughing.
Law enforcement officials were looking for the car in connection with the kidnapping of 11-year-old Phadra Carter. Although authorities did not know it then, the girl had been murdered. Her body would be found two days later in Botetourt County.
``I looked, and he was right beside of us,'' Grimes recalled. ``I looked and I couldn't believe the car was passing us. It was real obvious. It was like he didn't have a thing to hide.''
Grimes kept telling her niece to help get the license number and to see if they could spot a little girl in the car. ``What's going on? What's going on?'' her niece kept asking.
``I've got to call the police,'' Grimes said. She looked for a police car as they continued along Interstate 77 toward Bland County. They did not encounter one, so she stopped at the first available telephone at the Big Walker Mountain Tunnel complex to report seeing the vehicle.
``And by the time I got to work at GIV, they had already apprehended him,'' she said.
William Ray Layne has been charged with kidnapping and murder in the case. A state trooper and Smyth County deputy stopped him about 15 minutes after Grimes made her call.
Capt. Larry Bowman, Fourth Division State Police commander, presented Grimes with a certificate of appreciation for her role in the arrest. Without her call, Bowman said, Layne might have gotten out of the state.
``We just wish we could've seen the little girl in the car,'' Grimes said.
State policeman comes home WYTHEVILLE - Capt. Larry Bowman has returned home to Southwest Virginia as commander of the Fourth Division of the Virginia State Police.
The division covers all the counties and cities from Giles, Pulaski and Carroll to the western tip of the state.
Bowman is a native of Carroll County. He became commander at the Wytheville-based headquarters in December, transferring from Richmond. Capt. Art King, the previous commander, was moved to Richmond.
Bowman said he hopes to fill about 10 trooper vacancies in the division from May graduates of the state police training program. ``We'd like to get most of those filled,'' he said, to get the division up to strength.
``The traffic has increased, the population has increased, the crime has increased, so I feel like the additional people are justified,'' he said.
His wife is still in Richmond, trying to sell their home there before they look for one in the Wytheville area. They have two grown children, a son who is a U.S. Navy officer and a married daughter in Charlotte, N.C.
Bowman became interested in a law enforcement career while growing up in the region.
``I had a cousin in Carroll County who was a deputy sheriff,'' he said. ``I just thought it would be a real good job.''
Bowman was a military policeman in the Army for three years, which added to his law enforcement interest. When he got out of the service, he found the state police had a hiring freeze so he spent a year with the Alexandria Police Department before he could be accepted for training as a trooper.
He has been with the state police for 32 years, and said he plans to stay in this area after he retires.
Industrial authority names director WYTHEVILLE - Benny Burkett, an assistant bank vice president and agri-business loan specialist who once served as a Wythe County Extension agent, has been named as the new executive director of the Wythe County Joint Industrial Development Authority.
He succeeds Earl Joy, the organization's first director, who resigned in October after 31/2 years. The last part of his tenure was marked by deteriorating relations with some Wytheville and Wythe County officials and a large number of closed-door sessions.
Burkett, 53, was chosen from a number of applicants. He is a Saltville native, and holds a master's degree in adult and continuing education from Virginia Tech.
The authority is also looking for a new administrative assistant to succeed Janet Simmerman, who now works for the Virginia Department of Transportation. She resigned shortly after Joy left.
Emory & Henry official named
EMORY - Karen Shuler Kilgore, project director and counselor for a Job Training Partnership program at Wytheville Community College since 1991, has been named associate director of academic support and career services at Emory & Henry College.
She had worked at the community college from 1986 to 1991 as an enrollment and student services specialist in the school's Student Services Division. She has a B.S. degree from Radford University and is completing work on a master's degree there.
Kilgore has also worked for Mountain Community Action Program at Marion and New River Community Action in Christiansburg.
In her new job, she will be responsible for a variety of academic support services including tutoring, diagnostic testing and special services for students with learning difficulties. She will assist the director of academic support and career services, Shirley Gash, with programs related to career counseling and job placement for students.
She and her husband, Neal, live in Abingdon.
Wythe seeks utilities funding
WYTHEVILLE - Wythe County officials are hoping to get federal funding to help with two utilities projects in the eastern part of the county.
They are seeking $9 million from the Farmers Home Administration on the proposed Fort Chiswell sewer project and $500,000 for a similar improvement project in the Max Meadows area.
Arogas Inc. of Saint Peters, Mo., is interested in building a truck stop in the Fort Chiswell area if the sewer project goes ahead. It already has taken an option on some acreage and Pat Manning, an Arogas representative, said the truck stop would mean 30 to 40 jobs.
Other development is anticipated along the Interstate 81-77 corridor in eastern Wythe County, leading into Pulaski County, once utilities are available.
The county Board of Supervisors re-elected Republican Tom DuPuis as chairman this month and chose Republican Mark Munsey as vice chairman.
DuPuis was re-elected unanimously. Munsey was elected by a 4-3 vote over Democrat Olin Armentrout. The Democrats have a 4-3 majority on the board but Democrat Jack Crosswell voted for Munsey.
by CNB