Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9501030005
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV3 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
Violence struck Christiansburg in September when Police Officer Terry Griffith was shot to death in a struggle with a West Virginia man who had been suspected of shoplifting. The man was killed shortly afterward in a standoff with Montgomery County deputies.
In December in Wythe County, Deputy Cliff Dicker was killed when he served detention papers on a 15-year-old Wytheville boy. Authorities have charged the boy with wounding Dicker with a .22-caliber rifle and then taking the fallen deputy's own pistol and firing the fatal shot.
The last weekend in February, under a full moon, there was a double murder/suicide in Ironto; a manhunt for a parolee who was wanted in three states for malicious wounding, rape, robbery and carjacking; and a fire that left the Blacksburg Country Club in ashes.
February and March brought another kind of trouble to the New River Valley - two of the worst ice storms in memory.
Your neighbor, who always stops to chat politely about the weather, stopped for marathon conversations as the ice caused folks to slip, cars to collide and power to go out - in some places for more than a week.
The town of Blacksburg even lost its water supply as power to the town's water plant went out for most of Feb. 11 and 12.
After surviving the ice storms, folk who live and work in Radford had to endure an even longer disruption to their lives.
The 50-year-old Memorial Bridge that crosses the New River between Radford and Pulaski County was closed April 22 after engineers determined that rust had deteriorated critical supports. Only pedestrian and bicycle traffic was permitted.
The shutdown - which lasted almost a month and outraged residents and shopkeepers - blocked U.S. 11, the major artery across the New River between Radford and Fairlawn. The Virginia Department of Transportation imposed weight restrictions when the bridge reopened May 18.
Even as residents took this year to remember 12 coal miners who were killed in a 1946 explosion in rural Montgomery County, an accident in a Giles County limestone mine that killed one man and injured another reminded us that our mining heritage is not yet gone from the region.
In Floyd County, it was the best of years for basketball fans, but the worst of years for beef farmers.
The community celebrated when its girls' basketball team won its second state title in December.
But the county also had some bad news for one local farmer - and for farmers throughout the state - when a couple of cows were diagnosed with tuberculosis, wrecking the state's TB-free status.
The news from '94 that may have the greatest impact on the New River Valley is a continuing story: the economic impact from state budget cuts at the valley's two universities.
As the economy gained stability in 1994, Gov. George Allen promised tax cuts and, as a result, budget cuts.
Virginia Tech's Cooperative Extension may have to struggle with a $7.3 million cut proposed in the governor's budget. Tech's related agricultural and forestry research programs may also be hit with a $4.9 million cut - if the General Assembly approves Allen's budget.
The programs would lose 30 percent of their state funding and upwards of 400 workers under Allen's proposal.
Meanwhile, Radford University's New College of Global Studies was nuked altogether by Allen, losing its $2 million operating budget for next year. The final chapter will be written when the General Assembly convenes Jan. 11 to act on the governor's budget plan.
Both universities also saw a change at the top in 1994.
Paul Torgersen, Virginia Tech's popular former engineering dean and interim president, was inaugurated as president in April. Two months earlier, on Feb. 10, former president James McComas had lost his battle with cancer.
At Radford University, faculty unrest led to the ouster of 22-year President Donald N. Dedmon. Dedmon, who is officially on sick leave until August 1995, was replaced by interim President Charles Owens. The search for a successor is under way.
In March, a Blacksburg mother discovered a book in the children's section of the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library called "Daddy's Roommate," about a boy who visits his homosexual father and the father's lover. She wants the book moved to another, more supervised section of the library, a move library Director Karen Dillon called censorship. In April, the library board voted 5-3 to keep the book in the children's section. Debate continues.
At the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, workers again worried about their jobs. In Dublin, however, the state announced an incentive package that not only kept Volvo GM in town, but paved the way for an expansion of both the plant and its number of employees.
In Blacksburg, folks were talking about a "smart" road.
The proposed high-tech highway got a big boost in October when a consortium led by General Motors and including Virginia Tech won a $150 million federal grant to develop the roads of the future.
Allen had promised to build the first two miles of the six-mile smart road for the consortium's research at a cost of $11 million. Although construction of even the first two miles is not expected until the end of 1996, business and community leaders have touted the road's value in promoting economic development.
The year ended with an exodus of football fans from the New River Valley.
Virginia Tech fans headed south in Hokie caravans to see their team play in the Gator Bowl in Florida on Friday.
For Virginia Tech, the Gator Bowl bid was welcome recognition of its successful football program following an 8-3 season.
Keywords:
YEAR 1994 FATALITY
by CNB