ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 12, 1996 TAG: 9602120037
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: General Assembly Notebook
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY AND MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITERS
Bo knows neckties.
State Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, stood out Thursday on the floor of the stately Virginia Senate.
He was the only senator wearing a dinosaur necktie.
Asked about it, Trumbo replied with characteristic candor about the brontosaurus hanging over his belly.
"Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur. I look up on the board, and I'm the only one voting one way," Trumbo said. "I used to teach earth science, and I thought this was very appropriate."
He said he picked up the tie during a visit to the Science Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke.
Friday, the senator's sartorial expression slipped into surrealism. "This one is that guy Salvador Dali. It's the confusion between justice and time."
Delegate pushes tax increase
Del. Lacey Putney, I-Bedford, the longest-serving member of the Virginia General Assembly, is secure enough politically to deliver some straight talk on taxes.
He'll be putting in legislation next year to increase the state sales tax from 4 1/2 to 5 cents on the dollar, Putney told members of the House Appropriations Committee last week.
"I don't understand why we who were sent here don't have the political courage to do what we feel needs to be done in the commonwealth," said Putney, who put in a similar tax-increase bill last year - an election year - to no avail.
Griffith gets a (new) heart
Ward Teel, 71, returned to the General Assembly Friday with a message: Organ donation matters. He's living proof.
The House of Delegates recognized the former Christiansburg delegate (1973-83) Friday in connection with a joint resolution offered by Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, that designates April 26 as Organ Donor Day in Virginia. Teel had a heart transplant in November 1994.
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996by CNB