ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 11, 1996 TAG: 9611120146
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: & Now This...
Talk about your subliminal advertising.
Two weeks before the Nov. 5 advisory referendum on whether Rockbridge County needed a general aviation airport, a member of an airport opponent group slipped an anti-airport message into a pro-airport newspaper advertisement.
Carl Labash called up the group running the ad, told them he was in favor of the airport, and said they could list the name of his company, Tro Priamadon, with others in an ad in Lexington's News-Gazette.
"I told them I was German," he said.
It wasn't until after the ad ran that anyone realized the name of his company spelled backward was "No dam airport."
"I'll tell anybody I did it," said Labash, a member of the Concerned Citizens Coalition. Though he's retired, he runs a company of sorts called Spex - ``That's sex with a 'p' in the middle'' - out of his home. It's mostly odd jobs. Friday, he said he'd just finished putting a new handle on a hoe for a friend.
He said he's been a prankster all his life. He confessed to pulling the old prank of putting an ad in the paper that he was looking for a wife and a tractor. Those interested should send a picture of the tractor.
Aviation in Rockbridge, the pro-airport group, didn't find Labash's joke all that funny.
Grace Sarber, spokeswoman for AIR, said Labash showed up at a town meeting AIR held and asked who the strange company in the ad was.
According to Sarber, AIR Chairman Harry Warner, who knew Labash had played the prank, handled the situation graciously. He said, "Funny you should ask. guess it's just immature."
The referendum was defeated 3-to-1.
- MATT CHITTUM
Dinner and a movie, maybe
Ex-movie star and ex-part-time Roanoker Debbie Reynolds is taking action to shore up the financial problems that have bedeviled her personal bank balance and her Las Vegas hotel.
Her efforts have yielded a couple of successes:
*An Arizona company has agreed to cough up $16.8 million in cash and other considerations to buy her Debbie Reynolds Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
*Her Roanoke attorneys have managed to collect $20 - well, almost - from her ex-husband, former Roanoke developer Richard Hamlett.
Reynold's hotel had been swimming in red ink, according to Bloomberg Business News, with unpaid bills this spring totaling more than than $3.5 million.
Roanoke attorney Tommy Joe Williams is trying to help Reynolds collect on the $8.9 million judgment she won from Hamlett this spring during their Las Vegas divorce - including some valuable Roanoke Valley real estate.
Hamlett has appealed the award. His Roanoke attorney, John Acree, said he could not comment in detail on the collection proceedings.
Williams plans to summon Hamlett later this month to answer questions about his assets in front of a court-appointed commissioner.
"So far, we collected only about $20," Williams said Friday. That's the grand total he came up with by garnishing one of Hamlett's bank accounts. "It was really about $18.56, if I remember."
- MIKE HUDSON
LENGTH: Medium: 66 linesby CNB