ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 18, 1996 TAG: 9607180032
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-5 EDITION: METRO
Ten Years Ago (1986)
July 8: Six teachers are reassigned between Huff Lane and Round Hill elementary schools in preparation for a reorganization that would give Roanoke city a primary grade school and an upper-grade school for the first time in recent years, beginning in the 1987-88 school year. The change is intended to permit a less-rigid system of grades.
July 15: Northeast Roanoke will be the site of a $4.5 million distribution center and warehouse to be built by Orvis Inc., a Vermont mail-order catalog firm. Joe Dresnok, operations vice president, explains that the center is relocating from Manchester, Vt., because that community's population of 3,200 restricts its expansion, and Orvis requires shipping access that Roanoke will provide.
July 21: For the past eight Sundays, the Acting Company of the Roanoke Valley, a relatively new actors' group, has been reading plays in local parks. Director Kathy Guy says the Sunday readings were begun to expose the company to the community and to improve the actors. Five more Sunday readings are planned.
25 Years Ago (1971)
July 5: This year's Miss Virginia Pageant, the first to be held in Roanoke's new Civic Center, will not have a fleet of cars for the contestants. The downtown parade of contestants won't be held, in part because Oldsmobile withdrew as a national sponsor of the Miss America Pageant. The Miss Virginia contestants will travel by bus from Hotel Roanoke to the pageant activities.
July 8: Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Richard Lawrence and his hunting partner, David Etheridge of Roanoke, have returned from a 22-day big-game hunting safari in Botswana, Africa. They bagged trophy lions, an elephant apiece, a water buffalo and numerous other animals. "I don't know what I'm going to do with some of this stuff, to tell you the truth," Lawrence says.
July 20: Roanoke Scrap Iron & Metal Co. holds an open house for Roanoke Valley government leaders and Attorney General Andrew Miller for a new $200,000 paper baling plant that processes as much as 1,000 tons of newspaper and cardboard monthly for recycling. General Manager Bruce Brenner says the principal source for the new operation is paper currently slated for the Roanoke landfill, 40 percent of the total 500 to 600 tons of refuse dumped daily. Brenner describes the facility as the area's "first major attack on the problem of solid waste."
July 21: The Roanoke School Board's revised plan for desegregation of elementary schools is approved by U.S. District Judge Ted Dalton. The plan closes Harrison Elementary School and buses an additional 1,200 elementary pupils, including Harrison's 421 students.
50 Years Ago (1946)
July 8: The Roanoke School Board promises to cooperate with the Roanoke Council of Church Women in organizing a voluntary system of religious instruction in Roanoke's elementary schools.
July 13: Roanoker Dickie Dickerson (christened Claude W. Dickerson) is an up-and-coming Hollywood star. He has also appeared on the stage and in such radio shows as "Lux Radio Theater," "Screen Guild" and "Suspense."
July 18: Maj. James F. Ingoldsby, superintendent of police, announces that Roanoke police will initiate an anti-jaywalking campaign, concentrating on the block of Campbell Avenue between Jefferson Street and First Street Southwest. The police will later move to other areas where jaywalking is a problem. Ingoldsby stresses that a "serious situation" had occurred, requiring "immediate and firm action." On July 31, Ingoldsby says, jaywalkers will be arrested on the assumption that a preceding two-week "educational period" was enough to convince pedestrians that the ordinance will be enforced.
July 19: Charles Wheeler Thomas, a pioneer Roanoke resident, dies at the age of 91. In April 1881, when he was town sergeant of Big Lick, precursor of Roanoke, Wheeler made a late-night horseback ride to a spot near Buchanan, carrying a $10,000 check and a resolution asking the board of directors of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad to select Big Lick as the terminal point of that line and the Norfolk and Western. The money and resolution were transferred to another rider, who presented them the following morning to the directors, who granted the request, which made Roanoke an important railroad center. His feat earned Wheeler the title, "the Paul Revere of Roanoke."
- MELVIN E. MATTHEWS JR.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 linesby CNB