THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9412300257
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
LENGTH: Long : 420 lines
It was a year of beginnings for Suffolk and Western Tidewater: new faces in politics, new construction, new plans for old buildings, new hope after tragedy. For others, lives were shattered or dreams postponed.
That is similar to what we wrote a year ago, reviewing 1993. But these things were echoed in 1994 - with notable, even notorious, differences.
Political landscapes changed. Agriculture, most of it, recovered and even flourished. People struggled and won. Others lost.
Some things were expected, many were unexpected. Even startling.
However we describe them, they were the events that shaped 1994, and helped to shape our community.
Here, then, are highlights of the year just ended.
FEBRUARY
A friend makes you an offer: Give me $1,500 now, and by the same time tomorrow you'll have $12,000.
Too good to resist?
It was for hundreds of Suffolk residents last year, who got bilked by the ``Friends Helping Friends'' pyramid scam that made a visit to the area in February.
Police say hundreds - perhaps thousands - of area residents played, some receiving huge payoffs. But in the end, most lost all their money.
Because pyramid schemes are illegal, police say it's impossible to estimate how many players there were and how much money was lost. Several lawsuits are still pending in Suffolk Circuit Court, filed by people who say they got conned.
In Suffolk, the pyramid scheme died. But it surfaced later in Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Police figure someday it will be back, and more people will get ripped off.
It's a matter of simple mathematics: the scam needs new participants to stay alive, and eventually you run out of suckers.
``It's all about greed,'' said Suffolk Commonwealth's Attorney C. Phillips Ferguson. ``That's why it's illegal.''
A Smithfield woman brought her small, northern Isle of Wight County hometown into the international spotlight when she decided to re-dress Olympics bad girl Tonya Harding.
Cindy Winn, a designer and seamstress who was watching the Winter Olympics on television, decided a i4sfyear Harrup new image was needed for figure skater Harding, who even in February was suspected of possibly having taken part in an attack on competitor Nancy Kerrigan.
Winn contacted Harding's entourage in Norway, even talked to the skater on the phone. She got Harding's petite measurements and stayed up for nights working on the costume's design and construction. National TV news programs slipped into Smithfield to watch the progress, and they were there when Winn sent the costume - shimmering white chiffon and gold bangles and beads - off to Norway.
The outfit made it to the Olympics on time. But Harding never wore it. She never acknowledged its receipt. Winn says she still has no idea what happened to the outfit, valued at $6,600.
MARCH
The Genieve Shelter, a regional shelter for battered women, announced plans to open a three-bedroom house in Suffolk in March. The agency previously had operated a one-bedroom apartment in Isle of Wight County, but had closed it in September 1993 when the landlord moved.
The Suffolk site, which remains undisclosed to provide security for residents, would be leased from the Farmers Home Administration for 10 years for $1. A federal inter-agency task force designed to provide food and shelter for the homeless allowed the FHA to enter into the agreement with the non-profit agency.
Update: The shelter, which opened in March, serves battered women and their children in Suffolk, Franklin and Isle of Wight, Surry and Southampton counties.
APRIL
The Navy continued with plans to close its Radio Transmitting Facility in Driver as part of the Base Realignment and Closure legislation.
The City of Suffolk joined a host of others hoping to acquire all or part of the 605-acre tract. The base - mainly open land and much of it low-lying marsh - has 300 feet of prime waterfront on the Nansemond River.
For nearly 40 years, the Navy has used the high-frequency towers at the site to beam messages to military personnel throughout the Atlantic and Caribbean region.
But advanced technology that allows the Navy to communicate by satellite from the Norfolk Naval Base has made the tall, steel structures obsolete.
Update: By December, most of the high-frequency communication towers had been removed and the Navy was proceeding as planned with closing the facility. Navy spokesman John Peters said the Navy expects to turn the site over to the City of Suffolk for use by its Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
A draft environmental impact study is expected to be completed in January and a public hearing is scheduled for February, he said.
The locality is negotiating with the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior, which owns the waterfront property on both sides of the river frontage, for use of the land, Peters said.
MAY
The 1994 elections were memorable for a lot of reasons that had little to do with Suffolk, but the city's political landscape weathered its share of shake-up nonetheless.
Two of the city's veteran politicians - former Mayors James F. Hope and Andy Damiani - both left the fray. Hope retired, and Damiani, hoping to regain his seat, lost to former Fire Chief J. Samuel Carter and called it his curtain call.
Councilman Ronald O. Hart stepped down after 16 years, replaced by newcomer Charles F. Brown. Also, Councilman Roy F. Waller fell to former Assistant City Manager Thomas G. Underwood.
And with the elected changes came an administrative one, as City Manager Richard L. Hedrick quickly departed. In his place: Myles E. Standish, former Isle of Wight County administrator. It's a homecoming of sorts for Standish, who held several senior administrative posts in Suffolk city government before going to Isle of Wight.
Voters in Franklin likewise ordered a change in command, electing C. Franklin Jester mayor in his first run for office. Jester defeated W. Norwood Boyd II, who had been on the council for two years.
Boyd can still keep his Ward 2 council seat until 1996, but incumbent councilman Levi Galloway lost his re-election bid in Ward 3. Elliott Kent Pope defeated Galloway, who had been on the governing body six years and was vice mayor for two.
Suffolk also held its first-ever School Board election in May, and it ended the way it began: on a low key.
Both incumbents who ran for re-election - William L. Whitley of the Chuckatuck Borough and Lorraine B. Skeeter of Cypress - retained their seats. In the Suffolk Borough, Frances Alwood was unopposed; former board chairman Robert N. Baker III decided not run.
In Holy Neck, perhaps the hottest race, Calvin W. Jones narrowly beat Jean Lee Copeland, a guidance counselor at Southampton High School and president of the Holland-Holy Neck Civic League.
Three of the board's seven members were not up for election in 1994. The next election will be in May 1996.
JULY
He waited 86 years to start drawing, and 94 years to find fame.
But it paid off for John R. Mason, the city's ``Hardee's artist.''
Mason, 94, started doing small felt-tip drawings about eight years ago, sitting every day at the corner table in the Suffolk West Shopping Center Hardee's restaurant.
Most of his drawings went to children. Some went to friends or tourists. And a few went to an art collector, who took Mason's drawings to a New York gallery where they are still on display, and fetching $200 or more apiece.
His work came back to Virginia Beach last year, appearing in a folk art festival sponsored by the gallery.
Mason never knew about his fame, and never cared.
``I just do it because I like it,'' said Mason, still a regular at the Suffolk Hardee's. ``I don't care what other folks do with them.''
Smithfield High School valedictorian Darrell H. Norton, voted most likely to succeed by his class, was led to jail July 15 after an Isle of Wight Circuit Court jury convicted him of home burglary and grand larceny charges. He and a former Smithfield student were accused of taking more than $5,500 in electronics, jewelry, a video camera and a gun from a Morgart's Beach home in February.
Norton was sentenced to a year in jail for each of the two charges.
When defense attorney Robert Jones asked him what he'd learned, Norton replied: ``I've learned it doesn't matter what you do. You're known for the company you keep. And your family is always there for you.''
In June, Norton pleaded guilty in juvenile court to one count of grand larceny and one count of burglary while armed with a deadly weapon in connection with a January burglary in Isle of Wight.
He received a one-year suspended sentence on each of those counts.
Two area emergency medical technicians with disabilities were fighting to be allowed to continue in their roles of providing emergency care and/or instruction.
Frances Riddle, an EMT with Nansemond-Suffolk Volunteer Rescue Squad, awoke deaf in November 1992. Doctors can't explain her sudden hearing loss, but Riddle, 27, has learned to cope in the hearing world.
Although the squad allowed her to continue as an EMT, she was not permitted to drive an ambulance or to be the attendant-in-charge. In March, she resigned from the squad frustrated and angry, but continues in her desire to be treated the same as other EMTs.
Gregory Willis, 32, an EMT with the Windsor Volunteer Rescue Squad, lost his eyesight in 1992. Willis, a diabetic, had been an instructor for the department, and has struggled to continue teaching. The state, however, has not approved his certification, saying he must be an active EMT in order to teach.
John Monroe, a technology education teacher at Lakeland High School, was voted Virginia's Technology Education Teacher of the Year by the state's technology education association. The award recognizes stellar performance in the classroom and dedication to the field, and it is the highest the state association bestows.
It was the latest in a long series of honors Monroe has earned for helping students pair math and science skills with hands-on building projects. He also is president-elect of the 8,700-member International Technology Education Association, based in Reston.
AUGUST
The work is peanuts, but not so the impact that the opening last year of a new Planter's processing plant downtown is expected to have on the local economy.
Formally dedicated Aug. 31, the 220,000-square-foot facility on Cullodan Street employs 400 workers, and, at year's end, was approaching its 1 million-pounds-of-nuts-a-day capacity.
But that wasn't the only reason the mayor and the governor sat smiling in the sun the day the ribbon across the $35 million building's front door was slashed.
The opening of the new facility meant that Planters Peanuts, now part of RJR Nabisco but still one of the city's most beloved corporate tenants, was here to stay.
``This is a great, great day,'' Mayor S. Chris Jones beamed when the plant opened across the street from the original Planters plant built in 1913. ``Planters has been synonymous with Suffolk longer than we've all been alive.''
Before the 1994-95 school year, no city school had relied on security officers. Last August, Superintendent Beverly B. Cox III discussed his plans to place a police officer in each of the district's two high schools to deter violence.
The Police Department said it could free up only one officer, and detective A.L. Weaver was assigned to Nansemond River High. The district covers half his salary, the department the other half.
Dominion Equine Clinic, a large-animal veterinary practice with a sterile surgical suite, opened in August, saving four-legged creatures a four-hour trip to the operating table.
The clinic's three veterinarians make farm calls on large animals, as well as treating those needing surgery or supervision at the facility on Lake Cohoon Road.
Dr. John Sangenario Jr., owner of the clinic, wanted to help horses with colic, a painful condition that often requires surgery. Horse owners previously had to take animals needing surgery to Blacksburg, Leesburg or Raleigh.
SEPTEMBER
To the members of Holland Baptist Church - like other churches - kindness, forgiveness and sacrifice were not new concepts.
So few were surprised when the December 1993 fire that destroyed their 70-year-old Holland Road sanctuary stopped short of hollowing out the spirit of the congregation.
With money from insurance and nearly $150,000 in donations, the church last fall began rebuilding. On Sept. 18, church members broke ground on a $750,000 project to replace the sanctuary. Plans call for the 6,400-square-foot church to be ready this Easter Sunday.
Work was under way on the Oliver K. Hobbs Campus of Paul D. Camp Community College on Kenyon Road. The $3.5 million facility will replace the college's cramped, leased quarters on Pinner Street.
The building - slated to open for classes in January - is the first of three phases envisioned to handle projected enrollment in the Suffolk area for the Franklin-based college.
Update: According to Academic Programs Director Ross Boone, spring semester registration begins Tuesday at the new campus, and classes begin Wednesday.
Suffolk Community Health Center moved to its permanent home on North Main Street, offering primary health care to all - regardless of ability to pay.
The facility, part of a network of community and migrant health centers throughout the United States, is the first of its kind in Suffolk.
The health center opened in the spring in a temporary, modular unit in the municipal parking lot across Main Street. The move to the old Leggett Department Store building enabled the center to expand its services.
The non-profit, community-owned and -operated agency was initially funded through a $550,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide medical care to underserved areas.
After more than 50 years and a world war, the Isle of Wight County Fair made a comeback. And the four-day event brought people from throughout Hampton Roads and from as far away as Isle of Wight, England, to enjoy the food, livestock exhibits and amusements.
The fair was declared a huge success by every standard - except financial.
Later in the year, the Board of Supervisors appointed a special committee to look at financing future fairs. A county fair for this year is still in question.
A new, high-tech middle/high school opened in Windsor as part of a major construction and improvement program for Isle of Wight County public schools.
But after just a couple of months, the School Board decided the school probably wasn't large enough to keep up with the county's rapidly growing population. By the end of the year, no decision had been made on how to cope with that growth.
OCTOBER
The federal budget ax fell on a unit at the Virginia Tech Research Center in Holland, ending work by three scientists on the Virginia-style peanut.
The research has been considered vital to local peanut growers.
Update: The peanut unit closed Nov. 26, with the three scientists relocated to other research facilities across the country. The five supporting technicians opted for early retirement.
The rest of the center, however, remains open with 35 employees continuing to work in other units with separate funding. Some of the work previously done by the peanut unit will be picked up by the remaining workers.
A 17-year-old Nansemond River High School student allegedly pulled a fully loaded, .22-caliber revolver on a classmate in a school hallway - the first such incident reported in five years, officials said. The 17-year-old was recommended for permanent expulsion. Then, in early November, two John F. Kennedy Middle School eighth-graders were charged with possessing a gun on school property.
Their cases were still pending at year's end.
An annexation battle between Smithfield and Isle of Wight County may finally have begun when the Town Council agreed to negotiate with the county over land near Smithfield's borders.
The town has been taking a strong look at annexation since a shopping center near the southern end of Smithfield became part of the county and took with it valuable tax revenue.
Among other areas, Smithfield also has had its eye on Waterford Oaks, a housing development on Virginia Route 10 just across from the new county shopping center. And there has been little doubt the town would try to annex the upscale, waterfront housing development, Gatling Pointe, just off Battery Park Road. The development already is into its second phase of expansion.
Officially, public negotations haven't yet begun.
NOVEMBER
Sometimes, inspiration comes from unusual sources. Just ask the people who started Suffolk's ``Save Our Station'' campaign last year to preserve the abandoned CSX railroad station on North Main Street.
For years, residents had sought some use for the aging brick structure, which was built in 1885 as a passenger and rail station and abandoned in the 1960s.
But not until a Nov. 23 fire gutted the building - which had become a shelter for vagrants - did organized efforts get under way to save it. The group is still negotiating with CSX, hoping to take ownership of the building and convert it to a visitors center, restaurant or other downtown attraction.
A proposed coal storage facility in Isle of Wight near Windsor that has pitted resident against resident and public officials against environmentalists for years took a significant step forward in November, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted the project preliminary approval.
The Norfolk Southern Corp. facility was first proposed in 1989 and would be built on about 1,600 acres on the outskirts of Windsor. The project has been stalled for several years after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opposed the plan, saying it would damage wetlands and wildlife.
The facility would be used to store coal brought by rail from western Virginia on its way to Norfolk Southern's docks in Norfolk.
In late December, the EPA reiterated its opposition to issuing a permit for the facility but did not move to slow or stop the permit process, which the agency could do. The EPA instead repeated its concerns and insisted certain requirements to mitigate environmental damage be included in the corps' permit, which the corps says has been done. Before it can be built, the facility also must be approved by the Interior Department.
The corps is expected to issue a final permit some time early this year.
In Southampton County, John Robert Harrupwas elected commissioner of revenue in a hotly contested, four-way race for the post. In June, Harrup won his first political contest, defeating three others in the Democratic primary to run as the party's candidate.
Harrup, a former surveyor, took office Nov. 9, the day after the election, to complete the unexpired term of Edward L. Marks IV, who resigned in 1993 after he was convicted of illegally tape-recording an employee's telephone conversations.
DECEMBER
After a delayed start, the Harbour View project in northeast Suffolk moved ahead, with new homes in four villages in the Burbage Grant phase of the development.
Eight builders are offering homes ranging in price from about $95,000 to well over $200,000. As of December, Centex Homes Hampton Roads, builder of the first village, Burbage Lake, said that it had sold half its 294 lots and that more than 100 homes are occupied.
With interest rates still relatively low during the summer, the project jumped off to a start ``at double speed,'' said Robert T. Williams, executive vice president of The Jorman Group, Harbour View's developers. Despite rising rates since then, sales are continuing at the rate the developers had originally projected, drawing buyers from Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and the Peninsula as well as Portsmouth and Suffolk.
Harbour View activity helped fuel Suffolk's record-breaking growth in 1994; the city broke all records last year for issuing building permits and is expected to eclipse that record this year.
The Virginia Corrections Department announced plans to move three of its area divisions into the former Leggett department store building on North Main Street. The move was scheduled for some time in January.
The offices will nearly fill the old Leggett building, which houses the Suffolk Community Health Center and The Virginian-Pilot on the first floor.
The move further supports hopes that downtown Suffolk can be revitalized. City leaders plan to build a downtown courthouse, and city-backed bonds will help the Western Tidewater Community Services Board take over the seven-story Professional Building, one of downtown's oldest - and tallest - landmarks.
They said they did it reluctantly, but Suffolk's School Board did it nonetheless. On Dec. 8, board members voted, 5-2, to approve a policy that prohibits student groups such as choruses from performing as part of religious services.
Board attorney Wendell M. Waller urged the board to adopt the policy to place the school division on what he called firm legal ground - regarding church-state separation - based on guidelines from the state School Boards Association. No other South Hampton Roads public school division has such a policy.
Suffolk's new policy doesn't specifically say students may not perform in churches, but critics fear that ultimately will be its net effect.
Update: At the board's Jan. 12 meeting, Waller is expected to try to clarify the new policy.
To most people in Suffolk, he was an innocent, competent, somewhat aloof farmhand. But to three little girls - and maybe more - he was a rapist, a terrorist and a violent criminal.
James Perry Wilkins, arrested in 1993 for raping a 4-year-old girl, was sentenced Dec. 22 to five life terms plus 145 years in prison. It was at least his fifth conviction for a sex-related crime. At 59, he'll likely never be released.
Police charged him with raping three little girls, taking pictures of two of them performing different sex acts, then threatening to show the pictures to their parents.
He once nailed the pictures to trees in one girl's neighborhood. Another time, he displayed them in his car while driving behind one girl's school bus.
Wilkins was found guilty of 13 charges involving only one victim. The others were dropped. Police say there are likely more victims but little reason to pursue the case further. MEMO: Contributing to this report were staff writers Bob Little, Susie
Stoughton, Linda McNatt, Vanee Vines, Jody Snider and Phyllis Speidell.
ILLUSTRATION: File photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II, MICHAEL KESTNER and ERIC
BROOKS
ABOVE: Nabisco's Mike Harper speaks at the opening of the new
Planters plant. In the background are Gov. George Allen and Mr.
Peanut.
Khedive Temple clowns entertain crowds lined up along W. Washington
Street during Suffolk's annual Peanut Fest parade.
It was a homecoming of sorts for Myles E. Standish, who returned to
an administrative post in Suffolk as city manager.
Greg Willis, left, and Frances Riddle are two emergency medical
technicians with disabilities who fought for their jobs. Willis, a
diabetic, lost his eyesight in 1992; Riddle lost her hearing.
Elections were a hot topic in '94. Lorraine Skeeter, above right,
retained her seat in the first Suffolk School Board election; former
Mayors Andrew Damiani, far left, and James Hope withdrew from the
scene; and C. Franklin Jester, below left, became mayor of
Franklin.
The drawings Suffolk artist John R. Mason, 94, did in Hardee's
restaurant have made it to a New York gallery and back for a folk
art festival.
Ross Boone, academic programs director, above, saw work progress on
the new Paul D. Camp Suffolk Campus on Kenyon Road. Classes are
slated to begin Tuesday in the new wing, below.
File photo
Firefighters fight the blaze at Holland Baptist Church in 1993, but
they could not save the building. The church was destroyed, but the
congregation broke ground in September for a new sanctuary.
KEYWORDS: YEAR IN REVIEW
by CNB