ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608050008
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
WYTHEVILLE - The Wythe County Joint Industrial Development Authority is seeking a new tenant for the plant being vacated by Jafree Shirt Co., which is closing after 60 years.
Charles Clatterbuck, Jafree president, blamed competition from the North American Free Trade Agreement for the company's inability to compete with cheap foreign labor. Employment at the plant has dropped from more than 100 to about 70 since the first of the year.
"It's his opinion that he can't compete with some of the foreign labor that's as low as 31 cents an hour," said Benny Burkett, the authority's executive director.
Burkett said prices on the domestically produced clothing would have to be 21 percent higher to make up for the difference in labor costs. People are willing to pay more for a "Made in U.S.A." label, he said, but not that much more.
Burkett has sent the plant's floor plan to the state Department of Business Assistance and to a prospect in North Carolina, and has posted the plant's availability on the Internet.
Radio station fires news director
WYTHEVILLE - Veteran radio news director Danny Gordon has been fired from Wytheville radio station WYVE because, he said, of his impending divorce.
He said the station's general manager, Wayne Thomas, told him the "last straw" had been Gordon's talking with a former WYVE disc jockey on the air because Gordon now has a relationship with her.
Gordon said he asked what the other reasons were. "He told me bluntly, if I didn't know, then that was part of the problem." He said Thomas claimed advertisers were upset about Gordon's divorce.
Thomas had no comment on the situation, saying it was a personnel matter.
Gordon had been at the station for 12 years, and was also its sports director. In recent months, he had assumed additional responsibilities in on-air shifts, promotions, production and public service.
He said he had been working from 90 to 112 hours most weeks to meet all those responsibilities.
Gordon has won many state awards over the years for his radio news broadcasts updated several times each day, and he said he had never missed a broadcast - even when he went to Japan to cover Wythe County competitors in international arm-wrestling competition or had knee surgery. He pre-recorded his news and sports shows.
He had worked previously at the Southwest Virginia Enterprise, a Wytheville-based twice-a-week newspaper. "For the first time in 16 years, I don't have news to do," he said.
He said he even painted the station's three studios at no charge to his employer. "I didn't care, because I loved the job."
Business student wins national honor
WYTHEVILLE - Arthur E. Hall, the salutatorian of the George Wythe High School graduating class this year, has been chosen as the nation's second-most outstanding business student.
The selection was announced by the Future Business Leaders of America at its annual gathering in Washington, D.C.
The Wythe County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution honoring his achievement last week. Hall had placed first in business leader competition locally, in the New River region, and in the state to qualify for the national competition.
The supervisors attached a $100 stipend to their resolution honoring Hall, on a motion by Supervisor Harvey Atkinson.
Bucky Sharitz, who brought Hall's honor to the board's attention, and Mark Munsey, who thought such a stipend should be funded privately by the supervisors themselves, voted against the cash award as setting a precedent.
Atkinson responded that the county will not have all that many people landing national honors of this kind.
Hospital again looking for CEO
WYTHEVILLE - Wythe County Community Hospital is again looking for a chief executive officer, barely a month after hiring one.
The hospital's board fired Gerald Neal last week. Neal had been hired June 12. Sheila McKinney, who has been vice president for Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, will be interim administrator in Wytheville until a search committee recommends a successor for Neal.
The board met in closed session with representatives of Carilion Health Systems, which operates the hospital under a contract. Nobody at the meeting would comment on the reasons for the action.
Neal had worked previously in two jobs at the same time, as administrator at Miners Memorial Medical Center in Coaldale, Pa., and Neuman Medical Center in Philadelphia, Pa. He had been chosen for the Wytheville post from among some 250 candidates.
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