THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 4, 1994 TAG: 9411020171
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PATRICIA HUANG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Anyone familiar with Chesapeake politics over the last 25 years knows Taswell J. ``Cowboy'' Carawan, political gadfly, eccentric, five-time-defeated City Council candidate.
With his western garb, slogan-covered truck and battered, tape-bound paperback copy of the U.S. Constitution, Carawan has been a hard figure to overlook.
Lately, local residents have sensed his absence.
His truck rests smashed up in front of his Great Bridge home on Hurdle Drive. Some speculate of an auto accident, but checks with local police departments have failed to produce any information.
Authorities at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where Carawan is a patient, say that he was brought into the emergency room with a closed head injury on Aug. 21, but they could not confirm that he had been in an accident.
He is reported to be in stable condition and suffers from fractures of the face, ribs and leg. He is unavailable for an interview, hospital officials said.
Authorities could not say when he would be released from the hospital or provide other details.
``I don't know if the council will ever hear the voice of T.J. again,'' said Richard C. Reynolds Jr., a Chesapeake resident and acquaintance of Carawan's. ``I wish that everybody who voted for T.J. would send him a card or something.''
A 50-year-old Chesapeake native and journeyman carpenter, Carawan has spent almost half his life challenging City Hall.
A long-time fixture at council meetings, Carawan is known for his emotional tirades, often accusing council members of being crooks and liars. When arguing the issue of salty tap water, he's been known to dramatize his complaints by shaking a salt shaker at the council and to recommend that the city go into the business of selling salt.
Carawan sued the city unsuccessfully to have a personal property tax assessment on his car changed and sought to block authorities from installing a sewer line across his property by erecting a barbed wire fence and chaining his car and truck together to block the city's easement.
Since 1982, Carawan has run for local office in six consecutive elections, including a run for mayor in 1988.
During last May's council election, Carawan supported lowering or eliminating the city's property tax and reducing the city's borrowing authority.
In 1986, Carawan was arrested in a City Council meeting for disorderly conduct. The charges were later dismissed.
``He had a strange way of coming across. When he talked to you, he was abrupt,'' said Reynolds. ``But he was a good man. He always thought a lot of the people.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
T.J. Carawan
by CNB