ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997             TAG: 9701020098
SECTION: CURRENT                  PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY 

YEAR OF EXTREMES

Now that it's over, and we have the opportunity to reflect on the past year, you'd have to conclude that the New River Valley went to extremes in 1996.

Blizzards melted into torrential floods. Marriages ended in violence. Good people died for no good reason. A popular race reached an untimely finish line. A new high tech highway symbolized either economic boon or environmental disaster. Virginia Tech experienced unprecedented success and disaster within the same football season.

The images that linger tell the stories. It's the nature of memory to record the vividly unusual events that happen to us and to help us sort out things we can't control or understand.

Let's hope the New Year brings more peace and understanding to our community. As for snow ...

LENGTH: Medium:   64 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  1. Gene Dalton. A late January thaw rapidly melted heavy
          snowbanks and caused streams like Pulaski County's Peak Creek to 
          swell into swirling torrents. 2. ALAN KIM. A mourner (below) kneels 
          during a moment of silence during a Jan. 22 service at Virginia 
          Tech's Memorial Chapel for student Alexander DeFilippis, who had 
          been abducted and murdered seven weeks earlier. Three men were 
          convicted in his death this past year. 3. Gene Dalton. Nearly 2 feet
          of snow blanketed the New River Valley on Jan. 7, bringing life to a
          standstill and the large snow blowers to McCoy Road. 4. GENE DALTON.
          The numbers on Tony Morrison's helmet add up to a tempestuous 
          football season for the Virginia Tech Hokies. Nineteen current and 
          formerTech players faced misdemeanor or felony charges over the 
          year. 5. GENE DALTON. "Smart" highway opponents (left) turned out at
          a June 10 public hearing held  at Christiansburg High School by the 
          Montgomery County Board of Supervisors. But the board voted 4-3 a 
          week later to allow the state to move ahead with the controversial 
          project by allowing condemnation of land in a conservation district 
          for the road. Legal wrangling between proponents and environmental 
          groups over the proposed road through the rural Ellett Valley 
          continues. 6. GENE DALTON. A "Diversity Enriches" billboard (above) 
          placed on Roanoke Street in Christiansburg by a group advocating 
          homosexual rights was displayed in January for only a week after a 
          flood of complaint calls to the outdoor advertising agency 
          influenced the sign's removal. 7. GENE DALTON. The wreckage of an 
          eastbound Norfolk Southern freight train (left) that derailed during
          the January snow storm scattered 81 cars and 8,100 tons of grain on 
          a hillside near Ellett. 9 GENE DALTON. Spectators (right) who 
          gathered May 6 to watch Tour DuPont's cyclers whiz through the area 
          may have seen the last of this event, at least for another year. The
          race's principal sponsor pulled out several months later, canceling 
          for 1997 the popular race that follows a route through the New River
          Valley and Western Virginia. 8. ALAN KIM. Michael Knowles, dressed 
          in an orange prison uniform, watched impassively while his daughter,
          Vanessa, testified in a May 23 preliminary hearing about the shotgun
          slaying of his wife. Angie Knowles died March 20 at the family's 
          Christiansburg residence. Michael Knowles, a former postal worker 
          pictured between attorneys Max and Robbie Jenkins, is awaiting trial
          on murder charges. color.
KEYWORDS: YEAR 1996