DATE: Friday, September 19, 1997            TAG: 9709190997

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:  103 lines

HAMPTON ROADS - NEWS BRIEFS

VIRGINIA BEACH

15 artists start a tour to show how and where they work

A group of local artists have banded together and are offering folks a peek into their working studios on the first Magical Artists Studio Tour.

The tour, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, will include seven studios and 15 artists.

``You can come and see how and where the artists work. Everybody's space and way of working is different,'' said Lois Schroff, an artist who helped come up with the idea.

Artists will be demonstrating their talents and the tour will lead participants to studios scattered through the North End, Shore Drive, Great Neck, Mill Dam Road, First Colonial Road and Atlantic Avenue corridors.

Artists include Anne Arnaud, Billie Dorris, Debra Belcher Chako, Dot Burns, Nanette Crist Johnson, Cynthia Wallace Butler, Audrey Hauserman, Mary Fink, Peter Nolan, Lois Schroff, Bridget Watson, Penny Moulis, Elizabeth Dobbs Waitekus, Pamela Snyder and Catherine Mein.

Tickets cost $7 in advance at 21st Street Art Gallery, 21st Street and Cypress Avenue, and Burns Furniture Gallery, Regency Shopping Center, in Virginia Beach and Eagleton's on Boush Street in Norfolk. Tickets the day of the event are $10 and can be purchased at Studio F, 6501-A Altantic Ave.

For details, call 437-7047.

Regatta organizers donate $20,000 to schooner group

The organizers of the Low Rent Regatta gave $20,000 Thursday to the Schooner Virginia Project.

The project is a nonprofit group seeking to build a replica of a 118-foot pilot schooner that would serve as a goodwill ambassador for Hampton Roads. This is the largest single donation it has received.

Representatives of the regatta, which sailed its last race this year, said the gift would help ``an area sailing tradition to sail into the future.''

Proud veggie growers can compete on Saturday

Backyard gardeners and farmers, if you have grown a mammoth pumpkin or an oversize tomato, you have the chance to win cash prizes in the Giant Vegetable Contest Saturday at the Virginia Beach Farmers Market Country Fair Day.

Prizes will be awarded for the heaviest tomato, cantaloupe, watermelon, yellow squash, bell pepper and pumpkin. The first-place prize for each class is $50; second place, $25; and third place, $15.

Entries must be weighed on the official scales at Holland Produce stand at the market. An application form, also available at the market, must be filled out.

The contest ends at 2 p.m. Saturday. Awards will be presented about 3 p.m.

The only requirement is that owners, whether commercial growers or backyard gardeners, grow the entry themselves. There is no city residency required.

Country Fair Day, which is part of the 24th annual Neptune Festival, runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the market at the corner of Dam Neck and Princess Anne roads. The market will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today. Call 427-4395.

PORTSMOUTH

Talk addresses art forms of tribal, nomadic textiles

``The Art Form of Tribal and Nomadic Textiles'' will be discussed by Charlottesville collector Saul Barodofsky in a talk at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Belle B. Goodman Gallery at the Tidewater Community College Visual Arts Center.

The talk will precede an 8 p.m. opening reception for a new exhibit, ``Ancestral Memories: Women's Art East & West.'' A group of textiles collected by Barodofsky is part of the show, which also includes work by Cher Shaffer of Cutler, Ohio, and Linda F. Gourley of Dry Fork, Va.

The talk and reception are free and open to the public.

The Visual Arts Center is at the corner of High and Court streets in Olde Towne Portsmouth.

NORFOLK

First black Va. Supreme Court judge visits area

The Honorable John Charles Thomas, the first African American appointed to the Virginia Supreme Court, will be the keynote speaker at the first public program of the Hampton Roads Committee of 200 + Men, Sunday at 6 p.m. in St. John AME Church, 542 E. Bute St., Norfolk.

The Hampton Roads Committee of 200 + Men formed this year to build on the spirit of the national Million Man March in Washington two years ago.

The Hampton Roads group will focus on three issues in this region: community building, education and economic development. The organization, which has about 340 area African-American males who have agreed to start paying $100 annual dues, will declare their commitment to community betterment at Sunday's program, said George Crawley, president.

Sunday's event is free.

For details, call George Crawley at 623-5630.

ALSO . . .

Chesapeake - Chesapeake's Industrial Development Authority elected officers Wednesday.

Eric O. Moody was elected chairman; James E. Bellamy, treasurer; Philip A. Johnson, secretary; David Y. Faggert, vice chairman; and Richard A. Pippin Jr., assistant secretary.

The retirement of Jack Peoples, who served on the authority for 15 years, leaves an opening for an additional member. The City Council will review applications and select a new member. MEMO: Staff writers Eric Feber, Mary Reid Barrow, Paul Clancy, Lori

Denney, Ida Kay Jordan and Mike Knepler contributed to this report.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu