Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 16, 1994 TAG: 9411160113
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The Pulaski Business Alliance will kick off the season Nov. 26, the day when a 10 a.m. dedication ceremony will be held for the exhibits placed in the Old Courthouse. Tours will follow.
``It's going to be a big-deal weekend,'' said Alliance President Marlis Ryssel-Flynn. Arrangements are being made for a remote radio broadcast of the activities.
The Pulaski Jaycees will sponsor a Christmas parade at 7 p.m. Dec. 1. The Fine Arts Center of the New River Valley will hold its annual downtown Pulaski community tree-lighting ceremony at 5:30 p.m. that day.
Activities planned between those events include longer store hours and a raffle.
Pulaski Town Manager Tom Combiths told Alliance members that town crews will not be able to help put up garlands along Main Street storefronts this year, as they have in the past. He said the town may be able to supply ladders if the Alliance can find volunteers to do the work.
``Insurance-wise, we're not covered if we hang garlands and we do damage to a public building,'' he said. There has been concern among council members that, if the town did such work for businesses on Main Street, it would be obligated to do the same thing everywhere in town.
Downtown merchants got together to buy the garlands several years ago to spruce up Main Street holiday decorations, going along with the decorations that the town puts on its utility poles.
Mayor Andy Graham and representatives of the Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce joined Alliance members in formally dedicating two recently opened downtown businesses, The Wedding Center and The Wedding and Floral Center in the 70 block of West Main Street, and Le Cafe Coffee and Tea Shoppe on the upstairs floor of Flynn's Upstairs/Downstairs boutique at 27 W. Main St.
Also on that floor, Timothy S. La Valley will open Fernewood Antiques & Interiors, which will sell fine antiques, fabrics, papers and accessories.
La Valley also is a graphic designer and will offer that service as well. He hopes to be open by Thanksgiving.
La Valley had a design studio in Cincinnati, Ohio, for four years before returning to Pulaski where he had been in business previously. He said Roscoe Cox, the former director of Pulaski's Main Street program, convinced him that this was the time to come back.
Most of his antique furniture and accessories are from the 1750 to 1850 period. La Valley noted that Flynn had retained the Victorian look of the upstairs part of her building. ``My antiques are from an earlier period of time, but they look good in this setting.''
Among the pieces La Valley has already brought into his store are a medieval table and a windup record player for which he had to conduct a national search for a manufacturer that still made needles to play the 78 rpm records.
by CNB