Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 4, 1995 TAG: 9505040036
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The more I investigated, the stranger it became.
It defies explanation.
I still haven't figured out.
It all started on Jan. 25, 1990, when the Neighbors section ran a story about the Roanoke County school system changing the name of the Hardy Road Elementary School to honor a longtime Vinton resident, the late William E. Cundiff. He was chairman of the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors and operated a real estate firm that had his name.
This past Jan. 25, a copy of that newspaper turned up at W.E.Cundiff Realtor, enclosed with an order of light bulbs from Solutions, a company in Portland, Ore.
The Cundiff staff marveled over how the 5-year-old newspaper could have gotten into a packing box from Portland, Ore., and took the paper to The Vinton Messenger. A staffer there called the Neighbors editor, thinking it was more of a matter concerning the Roanoke Times & World-News. The editor needed someone to look into it.
That's where I came in.
During several telephone calls, I discovered from the company's Portland headquarters that all of the company's shipping is done from a warehouse in Kearneysville, W.Va., up the Shenandoah Valley north of Winchester. It's possible that copies of Roanoke newspapers would wind up there.
Second, I was told at the shipping warehouse that newspapers are not used in packing.
Then, I thought, there must be somebody from the Roanoke Valley working in the warehouse. But, the shipping supervisor did not turn up anybody with Vinton connections. It is unlikely that one of the packers at the warehouse put the paper in the box, the supervisor said.
But Garland Pollard, the realty firm's rental manager, thinks otherwise.
He believes it's more likely that somebody there put the paper in the box, either coincidentally or purposefully. Because, he said, packages from that company sometimes do have old newspapers mixed with the packing material.
"I've seen newspapers from New York, Washington and other places in boxes we get from there," he said.
Pollard also nixed the notion that a Cundiff employee placed the paper in the light bulbs. There was no indication that someone at the realty office opened the box before he, Pollard said. "I had to cut the tape," he said, adding the packing material was brown paper and the Neighbors section was between the cartons of bulbs and the side of the box.
It's still a mystery how the copy of Neighbors got in the box that was delivered on the anniversary of the publication date to a business founded by someone featured in the section.
Any speculation? Write me at the Roanoke Times & World-News, P.O Box 2491, Roanoke 24010.
by CNB