Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 9, 1995 TAG: 9511100038
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Nov. 3: Clinton Gray, 16, collects about 200 signatures from Cave Spring High School students asking that gymnastics be optional in 10th-grade physical education classes. Gray's petition drive started after Debra Anne Jacobs, a Cave Spring sophomore, broke her back when she fell from the parallel bars in October.
Nov. 4-5: Floodwaters ravage the Roanoke Valley, and 10 people die. After nearly a week of rainfall, the valley is deluged with heavy rains that cause serious flooding and mudslides. Numerous Salem and Roanoke residents are evacuated, and overflowing creeks wash away roads. High water engulfs cars, phone service is disrupted, and some schools close early.
The newly renovated Roanoke City Market building is devastated by floodwaters from the Roanoke River, and Center in the Square offices are closed during the ``100 Year Flood."
Nov. 9: Roanoke, Salem, Buena Vista, Clifton Forge, Covington, Vinton and the counties of Alleghany, Botetourt, Franklin, Roanoke and Rockbridge are designated federal disaster areas by President Reagan as a result of flooding.
Nov. 13: Some school administrators and School Board members question a plan by the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors and staff to move the county's school administration offices to Vinton.
Nov. 16: Kay Bechtel, a graduate of Patrick Henry High School now living in Allentown, Pa., has written a song, ``2-4-1,'' (``two leaders for one world'') that will be played in Geneva during the Reagan-Gorbachev summit Nov. 19-20. The song has attracted the interest of Newsweek, the CBS Evening News and MTV.
Nov. 20: Roanoke City Council names Robert Herbert, 39, to fill the city manager post vacated when Bern Ewert left in August. Herbert had been acting city manager.
Nov. 2: A diverse crowd - old and young, black and white - turns out for Tina Turner's concert at the Roanoke Civic Center. As to whether she'll retire, Turner, soon to be 47, says, "I'm just getting started."
Nov. 27: Flood Aid, a six-hour concert to raise money for Roanoke Valley flood victims, is held at the Roanoke Civic Center. The show features dance, gospel and bluegrass music to raise $10,000. After the concert, however, Richard Evans, an organizer, says the event raised slightly more than $4,000, but proceeds from concessions and advance ticket sales hadn't been tabulated. The money will be to given to the Red Cross.
Nov. 28: Roanokers Gene Edmunds and Phyllis Olin attended the recent Soviet-American summit at Geneva to voice their opposition to the nuclear arms race and President Reagan's Star Wars initiative. Former Roanoker Elizabeth Kepley also attended, representing conservative women's groups backing Star Wars and a strong national defense.
25 years ago (1970)
Nov. 10: TRUST, the Roanoke youth crisis center, officially opens on Hershberger Road. Staffed by about 35 specially trained young people, the center helps teens deal with everything from drug abuse to parental problems. Although TRUST's official opening is today, a volunteer says the center has received 15 to 20 call a day since the hotline number was announced five days ago.
Nov. 7: Art Suchier, a district manager for Arlan's Department Stores in Roanoke, describes his trip to Cuba aboard a hijacked plane as hardly more eventful than a deer hunting trip he recently took - he bagged nothing.
"It seemed to me it was an everyday experience," Suchier said of his Eastern Airlines flight. He was on a business trip to Atlanta.
Nov. 18: Vinton Town Council agrees to pay $22,000 to Mr. and Mrs. Eddie A. Stephens for land along Glade Creek near Walnut Avenue for a town park. Vinton also will receive one of the oldest houses in town.
Nov. 18: Salem police kill a Hereford bull that apparently escaped from the Roanoke Livestock Market on Shenandoah Avenue and ultimately entered a Salem Veterans Administration Hospital building, where it attacked a nurse and ran through a 250-foot hallway. The nurse was treated in the VA hospital emergency room and then taken to Roanoke Memorial Hospital for surgery on her ankle.
Nov. 25: The Roanoke County Board of Supervisors adopts a firearm ordinance that, according to its backers, is primarily intended to bring BB guns, air rifles and similar air-powered weapons under existing controls governing regular firearms.
50 years ago (1945)
Nov. 1: The executive council of the Lutheran Synod of Virginia, meeting at the Patrick Henry Hotel, gives its unanimous permission to Roanoke College to conduct a drive to raise $100,000 in 1948 to build a chapel on the campus.
Nov. 3: Coy Watson, office manager of the local branch of the U.S. Employment Office, appeals to all Roanoke employers to list all kinds of job openings with his office.
Nov.15: Roanoke becomes part of a new commercial air route between Detroit and Miami. Direct air passenger, mail and express service begins with Roanoke serving as an intermediate stop.
Nov. 22: Roanoke City police contend with the heaviest traffic in the 41-year history of the VPI-VMI football games. The department manages an orderly progression of vehicular and pedestrian traffic to and from Victory Stadium.
Nov. 22: A C-47 military transport plane, carrying 21 veterans from the Pacific coast to Newark, N.J., has engine failure west of Pulaski and makes a forced landing at Woodrum Field about 2 a.m.
Nov. 24: About 200 young people and interested adults attend an organizational meeting of the Youth for Christ movement at Greene Memorial Methodist Church. In addition to electing officers, the group hears an address by a "well-known youth evangelist from Chicago," the Rev. William "Billy" Graham, who is scheduled to preach Nov. 25 at the West End Methodist Church and at the United Brethren Church that evening.
PAST TENSE is a monthly feature compiled by Melvin E. Matthews Jr. to help readers recall past events in the Roanoke Valley. Information is gathered from past issues of the newspaper.
by CNB