Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 28, 1994 TAG: 9412280071
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELLETT LENGTH: Medium
Stan Musser, who became club president the day after the Feb. 27 fire, is intent on seeing both of those matters remedied as soon as possible.
``I think we'll be in the new place around the first of August,'' Musser said last week.
Blueprints are finished and the project is in the bidding process. Work may start next month.
``We think they can probably get it finished in six months,'' Musser said.
Until then, club members are using makeshift meeting facilities and forgoing large functions that once were possible in the spacious clubhouse.
``We have the double-wide trailer that we brought in this past September,'' Musser said. The trailer doubles as a golf pro shop and short-order restaurant.
"We meet in there. ... It's ridiculous, though. We can't have a huge meeting in there. The board meeting about maxes it out.''
The club, which has about 350 members, held its most recent membership meeting at Custom Catering in Blacksburg.
Still, morale among the members generally has been high.
``I think it's pretty good. We've been getting out newsletters monthly'' to keep members updated on rebuilding plans, Musser said.
The club recently consolidated five bank notes into a $1.3 million loan, some of which will be used to replace the golf course's 27-year-old irrigation system and some for any portion of the rebuilding effort that isn't paid for by insurance.
Musser, who also is commandant of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets, minces no words when he speaks of Judy Dean, the club's general manager whom authorities charged with arson. A Montgomery County grand jury indicted her on the charge.
``I have gone after her, I have personally. I want to prosecute her. I'm pushing [the commonwealth's attorney] to do it.''
``I guess she has a contingent out there that is behind her. We just feel like, with what she's put us through, something ought to be done,'' Musser said of the club board's thinking.
Phil Keith, the prosecutor, said last week that not all of the necessary pretrial matters have been completed.
Dean had been set to be tried next month in Montgomery County Circuit Court, but the trial has been pushed back to March.
The continuance was necessary because Dean will undergo a comprehensive mental evaluation now that Dick Davis, her lawyer, has ``filed a notice of intent to present before the court an insanity defense,''filed a notice of intent to use an insanity defense during the trial, Keith said, and because Davis had a scheduling conflict with the original January court date.
During a preliminary hearing in May, sheriff's deputies testified that, after she was found sitting outside a maintenance shed on the country club grounds hours after the fire was reported, Dean confessed to setting it.
Authorities say they also found in Dean's vehicle letters and notes in which she admitted setting the fire.
Dean, as overseer of the club's budget, felt pressure and was ``blaming herself for some of our financial problems,'' then-president Chuck Hartman said.
by CNB