ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 17, 1996 TAG: 9603180010
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
Professor honored
WYTHEVILLE - Donald W. Linzey of Blacksburg, professor of biology at Wytheville Community College, has received an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education.
He and 10 other faculty members from Virginia colleges and universities were honored at a dinner in Richmond this month. They were chosen from a field of 86 nominees, and each received $5,000 and a specially commissioned crystal sculpture.
Linzey is the second Wytheville Community College professor to receive the honor, which is based on contributions to teaching, research and public service. The first was Y.P. Hwu, now professor emeritus of physics. Only three community colleges of the 23 in Virginia have had two faculty members recognized with this award.
Linzey has taught biology at Wytheville Community College since 1989. He had taught previously at Cornell University, where he received his doctorate; the University of South Alabama, Virginia Tech and New River Community College.
He also worked as a consulting biologist, research associate for the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, and as a park ranger and naturalist for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Gatlinburg, Tenn. He has published four books and a number of articles.
He was instrumental in establishing the annual Blue Ridge Highlands Regional Science Fair, for which he has served as director all five years. The fair, a joint project of Wytheville and New River Community colleges, will be held this year at New River on March 29 and 30. The top winners will compete in May at the 48th International Science & Engineering Fair in Tucson, Ariz.
Jail issue unresolved
WYTHEVILLE - A Wythe County jail study committee could not agree on whether to seek a place with the New River Valley Regional Jail Authority or build its own facility.
And, if the county built its own, the four members could not decide whether to build onto the existing jail, seek a location elsewhere for a new jail, combine a new jail and courthouse, or come up with another recommendation.
But they did agree that the only way to resolve all these possibilities was to hire a professional consultant to make a study and come up with the best alternatives and costs. That is what they will recommend Tuesday to the county Board of Supervisors.
Sheriff Wayne Pike and County Administrator Bill Branson opposed participation in the regional jail planned for construction in the next few years, serving Pulaski, Giles and Grayson counties and Radford.Supervisors Mark Munsey and Clay Lawrence met twice with Assistant Radford City Manager Bob Lloyd, regional jail authority chairman, and felt that joining that project - which will be the last in Virginia to qualify for 50 percent state construction funding, unless legislators change their minds in the future - might be beneficial. But they were unable to answer Pike's and Branson's concerns, and ended up agreeing to Pike's suggestion for a consultant.
The 240-bed regional jail is to be built near Dublin, with the state paying for half and the localities paying the rest with money borrowed from a federal rural development agency or from financial institutions with the loans guaranteed by the federal agency for lower interest rates.
Pike has opposed Wythe's participation in a regional jail, saying, "Jails are so dangerous and so complicated and can cause so many problems, I don't want to participate in a jail that I don't have control of."
Pike said a 50-bed jail probably could handle Wythe's prisoner population now, and it could be built for expansion if those numbers rise. He said work-release prisoners could be housed in an open barracks section, kept separate from the secured cells housing dangerous prisoners. This would also solve the problem of work-release prisoners bringing in contraband to prisoners who do not leave the jail, he said.
But, if the county builds its own jail in the next two years, it will have to do it with no state participation at all. The recently passed biennium budget has no money in it for jail construction beyond previous commitments, such as the New River Valley Regional Jail.
In fact, the state plans to close jails that regularly house fewer than 10 prisoners, which could affect neighboring Bland County. Bland previously placed its prisoners in the Wythe jail at a per-day prisoner cost, until the Wythe jail got too crowded. Pike said that arrangement could be started again with a new and larger jail.
"It'll cost money," Munsey said of the jail consultant.
"It'll probably be the best money we ever spent," Branson said.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Linzey.by CNB