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The Roanoke Star-SentinelNewsRoanoke.comnovember 11 - 17, 2011 Community | news | Per spect ive

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About 1500 people attended the annual Energy Expo at the Roanoke Civic Center last weekend.

Ray Ganthner, Chairman of the Virginia Energy Indepen-dence Alliance, was manning one of the booths.

“The Virginia Energy Inde-pendence Alliance is a group of concerned and interested citizens and companies that are trying to make people in Virginia aware that we are very dependent on external sources of energy for our en-ergy in Virginia. We import more energy than any other state except California. And we think there (are) resources inside that state that we should be using to reduce our dependence on outside sources. Such as the wind energy offshore; there (are) additional things we could do with power plants inside the state, like coal powered plants. Using trash to burn to make electricity; methane gener-ated from a landfill. There’s a large deposit of uranium not far from here that could be

used to power our nuclear re-actors in the state. There (are) a whole lot of opportunities that we’re just not pursuing and we

should be. Because every dollar we spend on importing energy is exporting

our jobs and our money out-side the state.”

He says the alliance supports Governor McDonnell’s philos-ophy that we need to explore all types of energy.

The snow will be here before you know it and recently some snowplow operators got first-hand simulation training to help them prepare for the winter sea-son

George Perez is with L3, a Salt Lake City company that tours the country with a semi, which is filled with computers and simulation equipment. It was parked earlier this month at the VDOT Center in Salem.

Drivers sit in stations on ei-ther end of the trailer. They’re surrounded by three screens which represent the windshield and side windows of a snow-plow. There’s a brake, accelera-tor, and even an ignition key.

“In our simulators, they get to practice their driving skills and decision making skills, as they’re pushing snow and contending with the traffic. We can put them into different types of scenarios where they have to make decisions--safe decisions--to avoid injuries, fa-talities and, of course, property damage.”

Perez says the simulations are based on real-life scenarios.

“Pushing snow, from the pub-

lic’s view, all they see is having their roads cleared. But for the operators, they’re multi-tasking, they work long hours, and un-der hazardous conditions of

the weather. And, of course, it’s easy to lose control of their vehicle because it op-

erates in different dynamics. So, if we can put them through the skills, through the drills of hon-ing those skills, they become better operators out there when they’re pushing that snow.”

It’s L3’s sixth year of being involved with VDOT. They’ve trained people in Fredericks-

burg and Culpepper and two cities in Maryland recently, and a sister mobile unit is in Ken-tucky.

VDOT spokesman Jason Bond says they have 316 op-erators in the 12 county region and they had hoped to get about 65 people through the training during the week the simulator was in Salem. About 40 of those are new employees.

“It’s a great opportunity, espe-cially for those folks to get train-

Drivers said the simulator gave a very real-world experience.

Smith Takes 19th District, Head Fills 17th HOD

Sheer Determination

The River Ridge Region IV Cross Country Meet, which included 12

area teams, was held last Saturday at Hidden Valley High School. The winner of the girls race might have been predicted from this photo taken just seconds before the runners stepped over the starting line. Hidden Val-

ley junior Carolyn Bethel (third from left) appears to have her eyes on the prize, with a look of focus and determination that was hard to miss. It turns out she won handily with a time of 18:52.49, beating Cave Spring’s Katie Fortner who had out-run Bethel at Districts just two weeks earlier.

Photo by Cheryl Hodges

Senator Ralph Smith cruised to victory on Tuesday night as did Republican Chris Head, who won easily over Democrat Free-da Cathcart with over 65% of the vote.

Delegate elect Head, in an in-terview before his victory address, said “it is a little overwhelming.” He was pleased by his margin of victory. “It is extraordinarily humbling to have that much faith in me placed by the voters here.”

Head said he feels the pres-sure of the “level of expectation” to deliver to constituents want-ing results. “I’ve got some pretty stiff marching orders now and it’s time to deliver.”

Creating a climate for bring-ing jobs to Southwest Virginia will be Head’s priority. “The first

[Election]

Co-Op Withdraws Farm Proposal

Bruce Phlegar, General Man-ager of the Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op, said that they had listened “intently to the concerns of the citizens” of the surround-ing neighborhoods” and changed their plans. In a short statement read to c o u n c i l members he said, “I respectfully withdraw our pro-posal to operate an urban farm on the 12-acre parcel for com-mercial urban agriculture as de-scribed in the Countryside Mas-ter Development Plan.”

The Co-op intends to search for a suitable alternative for the farm.

Earlier in the 9:00 a.m. Coun-cil briefing, Mayor Bowers read the required disclosure for closed meetings, then he told everyone assembled in the briefing room

[City Gov’t]

Energy Expo Highlights Wind Power and Bee Farming Challenges

[Weather]

> CONTINUEDP2: Smith

> CONTINUEDP2: Co-Op

State of The Art Simulator Readies Snow Plow Drivers

The Center for Wind Energy was well represented.

[Technology]

> CONTINUEDP2: Simulator

> CONTINUEDP3: Energy

Photo by Valerie Garner

Bruce Phlegar, General Manag-er of Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op speaks to Council.

Politics?Enough

P4– Hayden Hoillingsworth surveys the national political landscape and asks, “Are we having fun yet?”

SpaceMore

P6– Downtown Roanoke is looking at a bit of a hous-ing crunch now that most buildings eligible for tax credits have been renovated.

RivalryClassic

P7– Cave Spring and Hidden valley chalk up one for the ages as they go into over-time to settle this year’s “Big Game.”

ClubThe

P10– Men from Roanoke’s “Greatest Generation” have a good thing going in their recently revamped “Big Lick Breakfast Club.”


Roanoke Republican Chair Chris Walters works up pre-cinct totals with an iPad and registrar texts.

Hayden Hollingsworth

Page 2 | The Roanoke Star-Sentinel | 11/11/11 -11/17/11 newsRoanoke.com

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that a new development had come up for one of them. Everyone cleared the room.

The closed session was to be for the dis-position of the 12-acre property located at the end of the Roanoke Regional Airport’s runway six protection zone. It was not a part of the now closed city-owned Countryside Golf Course but part of a swap deal with the airport for part of the golf course property in 2008.

The parcel sits between the Miller Court neighborhood and the Countryside neigh-borhood. Some residents warmed to the idea of free-range chickens but the majority did not.

Phlegar’s statement took the full Roanoke City Council chamber by surprise. Many residents of the Northwest community had “No Chickens in NW Roanoke” signs at the ready. Twelve speakers had lined up for a turn to decry the co-op’s urban farm proposal.

At Friday’s Planning Commission work session Planning Administrator, Chris Chit-tum said that they had tried to find alterna-tives for placing the 400 egg-laying chick-ens in another location. This would leave the eight “high hoop-tunnels” for growing vegetables off-season, a store that was to function as a packing house and education

center, bee hives, a pump house and a few storage sheds.

The co-op said they needed all the ele-ments in one place. With a stalemate and a barrage of emails from opponents of the chickens they decided to look elsewhere.

Phlegar thanked staff for their many hours of diligent work. He was grateful for the careful consideration of all the members of council.

The co-op “remains dedicated to creating a sustainable urban farm in Roanoke” and working with the city “to make the concept a reality,” he said.

The co-op had submitted its request on July 8. In a subsequent press release Phlegar said, “We are not interested in creating an entity that is a significant point of conflict with the surrounding neighborhood.”

Jacqueline Haley, daughter of Helen Da-vis and niece of Evelyn Bethel, presented council with 1404 signatures on a petition against the “chicken and bee” farm. Haley said to Mr. Phlegar, “that we wish you the best in your endeavors in a new location for your project.” She thanked him for with-drawing the project from Countryside.

Council member Anita Price hoped that the idea would be pursued and alternatives found. She said, “but it is delving into terri-

tory that many of us are just not ready to be participants of.” She thanked the co-op for “being respectful to the sentiments and to the concerns [of the neighborhood].”

Councilman Sherman Lea thanked the citizens for their commitment and said to the residents, “I think you see now what community involvement is all about.” He said from the first time he heard of the proj-ect he thought that, “Countryside was the wrong place.” He challenged them “to stay vigilant and stay focused.”

To some mumbling from the residents, Council member Ray Ferris said he believed that urban agriculture was the new golf course type community project. Council member Bill Bestpitch said that “we can not correct all the mistakes that have been made in the past but we can set a new course for the future in terms of transparency and in terms of encouraging and respecting citizen involvement in public processes.”

Bonnie Beckett of the Willow Walk subdi-vision said, “I am so excited at the outcome of our ordeal … Maybe we should become more organized to prevent it from happen-ing again.”

> Co-Op From page 1

ing.”“This is a great opportunity for our equip-

ment operators and snowplow drivers to get some hands on experience before the snow starts to fall. And it’s a great training mecha-nism. I mean, all types of professionals use simulators-everything from pilots to law en-forcement. So, why not include our snow-plow operators in simulator training?”

Doyle Eaton was one of the students tak-ing the training. He’s been driving a snow-plow for 14 years.

“It kind of reinforced what I already know since I am experienced. It reinforced to keeping your eyes on your right and left, - your peripheral vision. And just watch for other people is one main thing-and other objects, fixed objects-also.”

“After you got into it, at first, you felt like you were at a video game. But then after you really focused on the screen, it did seem real. There was actually a truck sitting on a ramp and when I came up on it, I jerked the wheel, just like natural.”

“And what happened?”“I went around it. He (Perez) said other

people had hit it before.”“There’s some guys in there. . . that don’t

have experience.”“It’s really a good training tool for new

employees, for sure.”Doyle says he wished he could have re-

ceived this type of training before he started 14 years ago.

> Simulator From page 1

> Smith From page 1

By valerie [email protected]

thing I will be doing in the com-ing weeks will be setting a target goal [for jobs]… I don’t know what that is [yet].” He said he would be hashing that out with advisors over the next few weeks. Then will come “a plan for legis-lative policies to begin to turn those wheels.” He wants that to happen “very, very quickly.”

Answering a question about working across party lines Head said, “We are in a climate right now from the federal govern-ment on down that is just so hard-line partisan. In any case, that is appropriate right now be-cause we have listed so far to the left that we can’t afford to give up any more ground. But on the state level there is room for consensus. The bottom line is we can’t give an inch on the core principals that we’ve established as the majority.”

But Head said he will work with regional legislators. “We’ll work together as a legislative delegation – all of us; party is still important, but in many cases there are things that have to be done that have more to do with geography then with party.”

Republican Senator Ralph Smith was also victorious in a contentious race with Inde-pendent candidate and former Senator Brandon Bell. Smith won with over 56% of the vote. Congressman Bob Goodlatte introduced the victorious Sen. Smith.

Smith immediately raked The Roanoke Times Editorial Board

over the coals. Smith asked, “is there anyone here from The Roanoke Times?” Only the pho-tographer who boldly raised his hand was present. Smith said for him to “put the tar and feathers away.”

“This [race] wasn’t close and shouldn’t have been close,” he said. He blamed the news me-dia for wanting to make it close. “There was such cause perpe-trated on this campaign and my reputation that we looked to the media and you did not report

… When we made a claim why didn’t [the media] go check it out?”

“The Roanoke Times going through my trash can on my lawn - it is illegal for one thing … You [The Roanoke Times] wrote a story about it and I am upset about it.” When asked later if he planned to take legal action, he hedged saying, “Let’s not go there at this time.”

In response to the negative campaign ads produced by Bell, Steve Mabry, Sen. Smith’s cam-paign manager, said, “the ads were the most venomous ads I’ve ever seen – it was a personal

vendetta against Sen. Smith.” Not mentioning his opponent

by name, Smith said, “when someone spends thousands of dollars calling me a cheat and a liar – now I don’t know about the legalities of it, but I think it should have been exposed - let’s get the evidence out there.”

Smith said he would carry on in the Senate as his past record demonstrates. “If I have more al-lies we will achieve more things,” he said. Many people cam-paigned on jobs but “we don’t need any more government jobs … We need private enterprise jobs,” said Smith.

Brandon Bell, in a phone call, said his whole premise was to “ask leaning Republicans to change their behavior and vote for an Independent – that’s a bit of a chore to do.” He said he worked one precinct in Franklin County and said that they didn’t have a clue who either one of the candidates where.

In a phone call to Carter Turn-er who came in second in a close race for the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors Catawba District, Turner was resigned. He lamented over being called a

liberal when he said he was truly an Independent. Turner gar-nered 31% of the vote in a three-way race, coming in second to incumbent Joe “Butch” Church with 41% of the vote.

Delegate Dave Nutter did not attend the gathering at the Sheraton and did not return a phone call.

Republican Carla Bream lost the Commissioner of the Rev-enue seat to incumbent Demo-crat Nancy Horn. Bream, who came in with just under 34% of the vote, said she ran the best possible race she could, though it became contentious with both sides accusing the other of dirty tricks.

Republican Delegate Greg Habeeb in the 8th district was unopposed and was at a Re-publican caucus in Richmond. In a tweet he said it was a “crazy night.”

Roanoke City Democrat Del-egate Onzlee Ware was unop-posed, as was Brenda Hamilton for Clerk of Court. In Roanoke County, Sheriff Mike Winston, Commonwealth Attorney Ran-dy Leach and Treasurer Kevin Hutchins were also unopposed.

Republican George Assaid came up short in his bid for Cave Spring Roanoke County Board of Supervisors against In-dependent incumbent Charlotte Moore. (See article on page 3.)


Chris Head


Ralph Smith

Edwards Pledges To Keep Up Good FightJohn Edwards was returned

to the Virginia State Senate on Tuesday with a solid win over Republican challenger Dave Nutter. The Democrat incum-bent, first elected to the Sen-ate in 1995, even bested Nutter on his home turf, with an 11% margin of victory in Montgom-ery County. Nutter did win Ro-anoke County but was beaten badly in Roanoke City, the core of Edwards’ district.

“I ran on my record,” said Edwards afterward. He called the win “an affirmation of the things I’ve been doing for my district.” He then went on to mention his support for rail transportation, declaring to “do everything I can to make sure we have Amtrak here.” Edwards said the result (he bested Nutter 56% to 44% overall) proved that “you can’t create jobs by cutting, cutting, cutting.”

Edwards pledged to work on affordable health care and of-fered support for the Medicaid system. All in all “this campaign

is an affirmation of positive cam-paigning - a rejection of people who try negative campaigning. It just doesn’t work.” Repub-licans tried their best to bash Edwards for suggesting that the gas tax be raised to help pay for road projects but the charge ap-parently had little impact.

“They want to know what you’ve done and what you’re going to do in the future,” said Edwards about his approach to campaigning. “That’s what I tried to tell [voters].” The Smart Way connector bus and the Roanoke Higher Education Center he helped secure fund-ing for are two examples, said Edwards, where he has worked to increase the quality of life in the Roanoke Valley.

“I’ve heard more and more people say they vote against candidates who run negative campaigns,” said Edwards, who felt it was important that the State Senate remain in Demo-cratic hands, to help counter-balance the Republican House

of Delegates and the GOP governor. The soft-spoken Ed-wards, a lawyer by trade and a Harvard graduate, stayed posi-tive with campaign ads that ig-nored Nutter's claim that the in-cumbent was open to a gas tax hike, which would be the first in Virginia since the 1980’s.

Republican Chris Head eas-ily won the open 17th District seat in the House of Delegates, defeating Democrat oppo-nent Freda Cathcart 65.5% to 34.33%. Cathcart said the ex-perience of running for office

was worth it in any case. “It was wonderful… Very eye opening. I’m very proud of the volunteers that came out to support me.” Cathcart said her campaign was “outmatched” by the money Head, was able to raise.

Cathcart was pleased that she was able to bring some issues to light, although she had wanted to spend more time on topics like the ban on uranium min-ing, which she hopes the House of Delegates will keep in place. “I hope the voters stand up and ask their representatives to pro-tect Virginia.”

She also would not rule out seeking public office in the fu-ture: “I’m saving the signs,” said Cathcart. Edwards called Cath-cart courageous and said she was a “real trooper” for taking on Head in a Republican-lean-ing district.

Photo by Gene Marrano

John Edwards celebrates his victory Tuesday with family members and supporters.

By Gene [email protected]


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Church Highlights “Bold Steps” In State Of The County Address

Hopefully it wasn’t an omen: as he began to give the State of the County address last week at the Green Ridge Recreation Center, the power went out on Board of Supervisors chair-man Joe “Butch” Church.

He and Roanoke County School Board chair David Wymer had to deliver their remarks to the hundred or so gathered at the center’s gym-nasium, during the annual event that is hosted by the Ro-anoke Regional Chamber of Commerce. Alas, the accom-panying Power Point presen-tations were also a casualty of the power failure, as a trans-former failed.

Roanoke City Manager Chris Morrill and Vinton May-or Brad Grose were among the attendees that came from all of the jurisdictions in Roanoke County. First elected in 1999. Church, who was running for a fourth term on Tuesday, hoped that his address would leave people feeling “ener-gized.” Investing in the Future was the theme of his remarks, said Church, adding that “citi-zens come first” in Roanoke County.

He also said transparency has been the operative word in how the Board of Supervi-sors and the county has dealt with the public in recent years. Church ticked off several ac-complishments that included no tax increases and a bal-anced budget. He pointed out, as in the past, that Roanoke County’s tax rate compares fa-vorably to those of surround-ing counties and is only higher because of the increased level of services demanded by citi-zens.

The board has also shown “continued support” for edu-cation, despite tough eco-nomic times and lower tax revenues. Much of that has to do with what Church called “sound financial practices” in an atmosphere that has been “most challenging” over the past three years.

Once again the former col-lege basketball official and retired insurance agent bad-mouthed any plan that would make local governments re-sponsible for secondary road maintenance – as the General Assembly has suggested could be an option. “The General Assembly can be a one-man wrecking crew,” said Church.

Reducing the county staff through attrition, cutting back on travel expenses and look-ing for other cost cutting mea-sures has helped keep Roanoke County afloat, added Church, who now identifies himself as an Independent after first get-ting elected as a Republican in

1999.Church touted the coun-

ty’s Information Technol-ogy department for helping to improve customer service and Roanoke County’s new website, launched earlier this year. “We listened to citizens who said they wanted a user-friendly site,” noted Church. The website won an award from the Center for Digital Government.

A partnership with Roanoke City on the horizon will mean a regional emergency radio sys-tem will be in place; the Vinton and Roanoke County dispatch centers merged last year. The changes will keep Roanoke County “ahead of the curve in the crucial area of communi-cations,” said Church. He also cited retiring police chief Ray

Lavinder and invited him to the podium to be recognized. Church recognized retiring Parks and Recreation Director Pete Haislip, and his successor, Doug Blount.

Wymer was introduced by Church and gave his own State of the Schools report, talking about the recent “difficult fi-nancial times” that the system has weathered with help from the Board of Supervisors.

Wymer touted the county schools as being fully accredit-ed, with a graduation rate near 92 percent, and numerous construction projects recently completed or underway. De-spite “severe reductions in state funding” over the past three years, Wymer said Roa-noke County schools are in “outstanding shape.”

New libraries in south Roa-noke County (now slated to open in January 2012) and Glenvar, plus library projects on the board for Mount Pleas-ant and Vinton also received mention. Church said Roa-noke County had a willingness to “make big decisions and take bold steps forward,” as he concluded his remarks.



Butch Church details the State of the County – with-out a sound system.

> Energy From page 1

Status Quo Holds In County RacesButch Church summed it up

this way after beating back a strong challenge from two con-tenders: “I feel pretty good right now,” said Church, who won a fourth term on the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. The Catawba rep-resentative and current board chairman said his reelection said something else about the negative tone of the campaign, especially from independent Carter Turner.

“It sends a loud and clear message. [Voters] want no part of it. They’re not going to fall for these off-the-wall-antics.” He termed it “negative sensational-ism.” Church also said the larger war chests his opponents had also showed that money doesn’t always win elections.

Turner questioned Church’s assertion that he had opposed an asphalt plant in Glenvar, one that local residents did not want built in a populated area - a charge that led to some heated exchanges. There was also a flap about a service dog in training that was out on the campaign trail. "Voters saw through that," said Church, who ran as an In-dependent. Church said voters told him: “We need you Butch, you’ve done a fine job for our area." He then added, "They spoke quite loudly. My citizens have honored me tonight."

Church beat Turner and Republican challenger David

Drake, garnering 41% of the vote to 31% by Turner and 28% by Drake. Church, who takes a lot of solace from the Bible said, “Without God none of this would have happened.”

David Wymer also won a sec-ond term as Catawba’s represen-tative on the Roanoke County School Board, beating back a challenge by A.C. Burke.

Meanwhile, Cave Spring su-pervisor Charlotte Moore, run-ning as an Independent, eked out another close win for a sec-ond term, winning by 76 votes over Republican George Assaid. Independent Stan Seymour was third. “I work hard every day …to do things that citizens want and need,” said Moore. “Every little issue, no matter how small it may seem, is important to that person. I try to handle every is-sue on a [daily] basis. I’m very proud that they supported me.”

Moore didn’t think she would win four years ago and said, “I really wanted to continue what I started, trying to implement

the things I’m passionate about. It was more nerve-racking this time.”

Nancy Horn was returned to her post as Roanoke County Commissioner of the Revenue, fending off an aggressive chal-lenge from Republican Carla Bream. Horn won handily, garnering 59% of the vote to Bream’s 33%. “I am delighted that the race is over, because I have a lot of work to do every day,” said Horn. Bream had lev-eled charges that Horn’s office was not customer-friendly and was difficult to reach by phone.

“It was hard to work at night on [the campaign],” added Horn. As for her department’s performance? “I don’t intend to change anything in my office,” she declared. Many of those who work for Horn showed up at the Holiday Inn Tanglewood, where Moore and Horn sup-porters gathered to watch elec-tion results.

“They must feel like I’ve han-dled things well at the county,” said Horn, who also praised her “excellent staff.” The Demo-crat will begin a fourth term as Commissioner of the Revenue.

Elsewhere Fuzzy Minnix (School Board- Cave Spring) and Roanoke County treasurer Kevin Hutchins won unop-posed races.

“We try to keep those members informed about energy issues in the state and nationally because if Virginia can contribute to our own energy inde-pendence, then we can actually contribute to na-tional energy independence at the same time.”

Ganthner says the alliance was formed two years ago and now has 1700 members.

Speaking of energy, Remy Pangle, from the Vir-ginia Center for Wind Energy, was sharing her booth with a replica of a wind turbine.

She says the Virginia Center for Wind Energy is a group at James Madison University. They’re similar to an extension agent, for instance what Virginia Tech is to the agriculture industry.

The energy office for Virginia and the U. S. Department of energy funds the Virginia Center for Wind Energy. “But we do a lot of work and provide a lot of services to help the communities and the residents of Virginia to better understand what wind energy is; what wind farms could mean for Virginia, as well as determine if a wind turbine could be right for you at your home.”

They’ve been contacted by Floyd County and other localities to hold a public forums with ex-perts to address residents’ concerns. “So that the public can make an informed decision rather than a decision based on opinions and mis-informa-tion.”

According to Pangle, some residents believe birds and bats will be affected, that it will increase their electric rates, that it won’t produce enough energy to be viable, that it will hurt tourism or de-crease their view shed.

“I think our biggest obstacle is people just don’t want to see them. And there’s nothing we can do about that because it’s so objective. I mean, if you don’t think they’re pretty, I can’t tell you that they’re pretty. But we can just give you the facts about how beneficial they could be to your com-munity.”

Gunther Hauk from Floyd was giving out free samples of honey. He operates Spikenard Honey Bee Sanctuary, about nine miles from Floyd.

Hauk says beekeepers are losing 33 percent of their honeybees each year nationally due to colo-

ny collapse disorder. It’s cause unknown but stress on the hive might be a factor.

“I’ve never had colony collapse disorder. I’ve never had foul brood which is almost impossible if you ask a beekeeper without medication. I haven’t had these illnesses because I treat the bees accord-ing to what they need and not what I need.”

He doesn’t take honey from some of the hives because there’s not that much of a surplus, so he has less of an income but doesn’t have to intro-duce a new queen into the hive each year and doesn’t lose as many bees from diseases that other beekeepers do.

“(The sanctuary is) different from an apiary or commercial or hobby bee keeping in that we don’t take more honey than what they readily give. In other words, we don’t feed sugar, we don’t raise queens artificially; we don’t give plastic founda-tions; we travel with them.”

Hauk says they help the bees “do their thing.” “We have medicinal teas to strengthen their im-mune system. We have a lot of forage for them; a lot of medicinals that we are planting especially for them; acres-wise.”

They’re leasing 25 acres and 5 of those are farmed especially for the bees. He’s been a bee-keeper for 37 years and he gave the first sustain-able beekeeping workshop in the U. S. in 1996. He’s also written a book in 2002 about saving the honeybee. That was before colony collapse disor-der evolved. “I knew what was coming . . . I just didn’t know the name of it.”

Information on bee keeping was on display.


Charlotte Moore and Nancy Horn both won re-election.


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Politics: Are We Having Fun Yet?If the answer is “Yes,” then

we’re really in trouble. I don’t know how much

more of this amusement we can stand. We are beyond the local elections and what a side shows that has been! We couldn’t even be sure who we would be voting for with re-districting and candidates moving, or at least appearing to move, into a neighborhood where chances of election would be more fa-vorable. With few exceptions, most of the money was spent on vilifying the op-ponents. Virtually all the ads depicted the opposition as the dev-il incarnate and the candidate as savior of civilization. Un-fortunately, elections for those who handle our money got little interest; the treasur-ers and commis-sioners of revenue actually do work. Finding out their qualifica-tions for working with millions of taxpayer dollars is not easy, but they certainly were adept at mud-slinging. One would hope members of the General Assembly will move beyond the name-calling turf battles and figure out how to meet the ever-growing needs of the state. Breath-holding on that count

will be a risky business if past sessions are any indicator.

To make matters worse, we are just getting tuned up for the real fun. Despite one’s political inclinations there is one obvi-ous fact emerging from both sides of the presidential race: It’s going to get a lot worse. The Democrats are having a field day watching the Republicans edge closer to self-destruction as the Tea Party tries to wring one more drop from its already over-used bag. P.T. Barnum

may have invented the three ring circus but even he could not have imagined the oc-tagonal frenzy which “The Hermanator” and his fellow per-formers are present-ing. Let’s hope that Barnum’s dictum of,

“There’s a sucker born every minute,” turns out not to be true for the elector-

ate.We have the media to thank

for all our overexposure. I have lost count of how many “debates” we have endured. The only thing that would add more color might be the can-didacy of Homer Simpson. I fully expect, before it’s over (in only one more year) we will have set a record for shenani-

gans. Who among us does not have issues that you would not want exposed? Rest assured, if you run for office, they will be discovered. Yes, some of us stuffed the ballot box in an elementary school election for class president. Yes, some of us copied homework that wasn’t ours. Yes, some of us have been married more than once and the reasons it didn’t work will become public domain.

How to determine whether something that happened de-cades ago is fair game for cur-rent politics is difficult. Joe Biden, in an early run for Presi-dent, was accused of plagiarism in graduate school. Ted Kenne-dy was expelled from Harvard for cheating and tried to cover up a drunken dalliance with Mary Jo Kopechne that ended in her death. One need do no more than mention the name of Bill Clinton, yet he achieved much in spite of his moral tur-pitude. Both Biden and Ken-nedy rose to great heights in later years.

We have a right to know what type of men and women are worthy of our trust and un-less due diligence is done by the media we will never find out. I suppose it’s up to us to sift through the chaff and find, if there is any, the wheat. The constant robo-calls don’t aid in that winnowing, but they surely are annoying.

I’m convinced that the good outweighs the bad in almost every candidate. Former US Senator John Edwards certain-ly seems to be an exception to that. As the late Mike Royko said of a Governor of Illinois, “He’s the world’s tallest midget.” That tiny shoe might fit a num-ber of our politicians.

Two quotations about poli-tics come to mind. Winston Churchill said them both. “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing . . . after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” And, said he, “Democracy is the worst possible form of government . . . except for all the rest.”

Let’s hope that we will do the right thing and not have to ex-haust all the possibilities before we find it. Our democracy is worth it.

Contact Hayden [email protected]

An Alchemy of SuicideThe suicide began 300 to

400 million years ago as ancient trees fell into

a noxious swamp, tumbling over the roots and branches of their crowded neighbors and splash-ing into stagnant water. It began even before the perpetrator was born. It began as these dying primal plants lifted their leafy fronds heavenward to capture the energy of sunlight in a long-ago world.

There was little thought of suicide as the perpetrator lived through its first 100 thousand years or so, always with a popula-tion under a half-bil-lion and always living within its means, but its suicidal behaviors were already present.

The suicide picked up its pace in the early 1800’s as factories in England and the United States belched out black fumes across an ever-darkening landscape, re-leasing the stored energy in coal, the fossils of those antediluvian trees, along with the smog of a cavalier industry without con-trols. Instead of living on the energy of a single solar year, now the perpetrator could be fruitful and multiply with a plethora of kilocalories locked up since be-fore the Age of Dinosaurs. Un-der one billion individuals since its African origins, now the per-petrator’s numbers exploded – one billion in 1804, the next bil-lion by 1930, its third by 1960, its fourth by 1975, its fifth by 1985, its sixth by 1999, and its seventh by 2011. Scientists and math-ematicians call that exponential growth. Some churches call it a blessing, at once censuring any type of population control. I call it unruly hedonism with only one likely outcome.

In the 21st century, the suicide quickened like a hunter with his prey in the crosshair. Fossil carbon released its ancient en-ergy reservoirs as the perpetra-tor learned new techniques for converting coal, natural gas, and petroleum into more of its own biomass. Supermarkets and transportation were two instru-ments of convenience for this biomass conversion. Externali-ties such as childhood asthma, acid rain, global warming, and the discomfiting deaths of sol-diers in the Middle East were

all ignored as the perpetrator gobbled up Earth’s nonrenew-able natural resources like a glut-ton escaped from Dante’s Third Circle of Hell. Profit and growth were stressed over quality of life, a perverse mix-up of means and ends. The suicide was assured when the perpetrator declared itself apart from nature and di-vinely ordained to dominate

and exploit its sur-roundings. Rather than seeing itself as part of a community of living things across Earth’s landscape, the perpetrator saw all things – even, at times, its own children – as commodities. Icing on the cake, so to speak, came when

unwise and entrenched politi-cians among the perpetrator’s population ignored the evidence of planetary demise, declaring, “I do not believe it to be so,” as if human-accelerated climate change and extinction rates were simply parts of a creed of liberal thought.

An era of political cooperation in the 1960’s and 1970’s yielded some of the nation’s most no-table, most emulated pieces of environmental legislation: among them, the National Parks Bill in 1962, the Wilderness Act of 1966, the Clean Water Act of 1970, and the Endangered Spe-cies Act of 1973. Democrats and Republicans alike worked together on these with a com-mon vision of precious natural resources safeguarded for gen-erations to come. Ironically, that spirit of cooperation seemed to vanish a generation later in a blind fit of ultra-conservatism just as the evidence mounted and converged, proving the planet’s ecosystems were stressed to a splintering point.

As a precursor to modern sci-ence, alchemy was an influential occult practice that centered on the four ancient elements of fire, water, earth, and air. Best known for its goal of turning lead into gold, the practice often proclaimed paradoxical results or the combination of incom-patible elements with no ratio-nal explanation.

In this story, of course, the perpetrator is the human animal and alchemy is the nature of its augured suicide. Daily juxta-

posed on the political landscape are seemingly incompatible (or illegal) elements: self-serving of-ficials with industry bedfellows, all proclaiming that human-accelerated climate change and extinction are hoaxes. The non-scientist speaks against the find-ings of science with a decidedly pseudo-science bent … and with his hands in an ever-burgeoning mountain of profits from fos-silized carbon. Coal, oil and natural gas are the bases with which we subsidize our lives and maintain the complexities of our society with catastrophe on the horizon for our political and economic myopia. Katrina was prologue.

To sidestep the suicide, the remedy is simple: rid ourselves of carbon-based energy depen-dency. Now. One solution is to reduce personal income taxes but impose a burdensome tax on the use of any fossil fuels and on industries that insist on such reliance, thereby keep-ing the same level of revenues pouring into the state and fed-eral coffers. Another solution is to invest heavily in alternative energy sources. During World War II, with the leadership of President Roosevelt and other international representatives, we consolidated our industrial focus to build a war machine that defeated imperial Japan, fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany and then disassembled to post-war production in less than four years. We can do that again, this time with a focus on alternative energies and infrastructure. It’s not all about profit and growth – and self-serving Wall Street and its bankers, antiquated indus-tries, and entrenched politicians be damned. It’s about our qual-ity of life in the context of a strik-ingly beautiful natural world.

Let’s turn the alchemy of a species’ suicide into sustainable approaches to our place in the economy of nature. With the energy of elemental fire, let’s take a stand for Earth, includ-ing its physical and biological treasures, and send the gluttons back to the Third Circle of Hell.

H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D.Director of Scientific

Advancement and DevelopmentBiodiversity Research Institute

[email protected]

H. Bruce Rinker, PhD

Who Knows What Time It Is In IndianaThis one takes a little

explanation, so hold on. In 1916, fac-

ing energy shortages during World War I, Germany de-cided to set their clocks for-ward in the spring and back in the fall, to get more sunlight into the work day. The rest of Europe soon followed suit. The United States dawdled until 1918, when it passed the Standard Time Act, which enacted Daylight Savings Time (DST) and also cleaned up lots of jagged time zone lines. At that time, the entire state of Indiana was placed in the Central Time Zone. (Simple.)

Rationality lasted exactly one year. In 1919 the U.S. re-pealed DST as a federal man-date but allowed any county to continue to observe it. Some Indiana counties did so and some did not, resulting in a complete zonal mess and lo-gistical nightmares that last-ed for decades, with a short

break of sanity when DST was mandated again during World War II. (War is always good for organization.)

In 1961, the state legislature decided to run the time zone

line right down the middle of the state, but allow counties to continue to observe DST voluntarily. But then the U.S. government passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966 which gave the Depart-

ment of Transpor-tation the author-ity to sort it all

out. The governor of Indiana begged for the whole state to be placed back into the Cen-tral Time Zone. The county legislatures screamed. Broad-cast companies threatened to sue the federal government if their footprints were cut in two. (Everybody crossed their fingers.)

In 1967, in a decision wor-thy of Solomon, six counties in the northwest (suburbs of Chicago) and six counties in the southwest (suburbs of

Evansville) were placed in the Central zone, while the rest of the 82 counties were placed in the Eastern Zone. But, ob-servance of DST was still vol-untary, and only the eastern-most counties near Louisville and Cincinnati did so, which meant that lots of central In-diana was acting like an East-ern state in the winter but like a Central state in the summer. (Got that?)

It was a hodge-podge for forty years. Finally in 2006, Indiana became the 48th state to enforce DST statewide, which of course caused a few counties to shift from one zone to the other. And then, finally, everybody was happy.

Except for Martin County, in the Central zone, whose largest employer is a mili-tary base that straddles two Eastern zone counties, which forced the whole base to be declared in the Central Zone consistent with Martin County, until everyone real-ized that most of the work-ers were commuting from the two Eastern counties which meant they lived in one zone and worked in another zone across the street, which forced all of Martin County and the base to go back to the Eastern zone...

Hope all those Hoosiers didn't forget to set their clocks back.

Mike Keeler

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Local Crossword for 11/11/2011

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14

15 16 17

18 19 20

21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33

34 35 36

37 38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48 49

50 51 52

53 54 55

www.CrosswordWeaver.com

ACROSS

1 Highs 4 Tiff 8 'Don't ya see, its not

about you, its about -- --.' (from the movie Rango)

12 Stood opposite 13 Read attentively 14 Judge 15 Time period 16 Wrack 17 Association (abbr.) 18 Heavenward 20 Climbed 21 Possessive pronoun 22 Learn 23 Baths 26 The other half of

Jima 27 Game Over. Thank -

-- for playing. (from the movie Zathura)

30 What area quality printer's slogan is Design - Copy - Print - Communicate?

34 Tinct 35 Transport 36 Wager 37 Writing tool 38 'Is this Heaven? If it

were, we'd be eatin pop tarts with --- Novak.' (from the movie Rango)

40 Property 43 Saves 47 __ fide 48 Feel concern 49 Friend 50 Little Mermaid's love 51 Seaweed substance 52 Hatchet 53 Pamper 54 Nobody wins with a

head ----. (from Paul

Blart: Mall Cop) 55 Acid drug

DOWN

1 Usages 2 A Fun and

Independent and assisted living community on Woodmar Drive in Roanoke.

3 Abide 4 Small herring 5 Gushes 6 Waterless 7 Decade 8 Virginia is for lovers

but Roanoke is for --- -- lovers.

9 Corn’s clothes 10 Otherwise 11 Repair 19 Shooting Star, make

a ---- as it passes. (from the movie Zathura)

20 Ring

22 Communication Workers of America (abr.)

23 Downhearted 24 Layer 25 Copy 26 Tax agency 27 Yang's partner 28 Fall mo. 29 Wield 31 A wager (2 wds.) 32 Happiness is a warm

---. (from the movie Elephant White)

33 Christmas meats 37 The area's newest

and most progressive Jesus teaching Presbyterian Church.

38 Weight measurement 39 Inactive 40 A piece of bedroom

furniture (2 wds.) 41 Which chill and grille

now features Chef Michael Wright?

42 Vexation 43 Prego's competition

44 Opaque gem 45 Which local ice

cremory is 'sweet to the taste, smooth on the tongue, and yummy on the tummy'?

46 Sleigh 48 Automobile

Star-Sentinel Crossword

By Don WaterfieldFind the answers online: NewsRoanoke.com

Have a clue and answer you’d like to see?email: [email protected]

PersPectivenewsRoanoke.com 11/11/11 -11/17/11 |The Roanoke Star-Sentinel |Page 5

The Preacher’s Corner - by George C. Anderson

Mother Monkey and Mother Cat

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Men And Their CarsAutomobiles are much more than vehi-

cles to transport us from here to there. Like dogs, they are almost part of the

family. They seem to have a personality of their own, and sometimes their owners give them names.

As we look back on the cars in our past, and compare them to the stream-lined vehicles of today, we are amazed at the progress the automotive industry has made. Not only do these horseless carriages have smooth running engines, lights that turn off automatically and windows that can be controlled from the driver’s seat, but electronic keys to lock and unlock the doors. And, in case you forget where you parked, you can call with your key, and your car will answer! On the other hand, no longer is it easy to tinker with the engine to get it running again. Today it needs a computer diagnosis and treatment by a specialist when things go wrong.

After his discharge from the army in 1946, Harry bought his first car, a tan 1935 Ford coupé. He says it had mechanical brakes, “and you almost had to drag your foot to stop it.” He also remem-bers it did not have sealed beam headlights – when the lights burned out, you inserted a new bulb.

When we met at Lipe’s Drug Store in 1953, he gave me a tour of the city in his 1938 black Plym-outh sedan. He told me he had saved enough money to purchase his first new car, and soon we were riding in a new 1953 two-tone Chevrolet Bel Air – tan and brown. He had paid cash for the car, and wisely deposited the money he would have paid in car payments, so he could pay cash for the next car. He has followed that plan throughout our married life.

Three years later, in 1956, we drove it to Gatlin-burg, Tennessee for our honeymoon. (That was the first time I had ventured out of the state of Vir-ginia!) He was still driving that Chevrolet when

Kathy, our second child, was in elementary school. She remembers she was so embarrassed when her dad picked her up at school in that old car. But Harry saw no need to trade it in as long as it was

running well. He did eventually trade it in, but I hated to see it go. After all, that car saw us through courtship, marriage and the birth of three children!

Son Harry’s favorite vehicle was not his first car but a 1949 green Ford pick-up he bought while he was in college at UVA. He had an apartment in the country and drove back and forth to school. I teased him for buying such an

old truck – 1949 was the year I gradu-ated from high school! But he loved that truck and it hurt him to have to

sell it when he accepted a Rotary scholarship to study at Frieburg, Germany his senior year. Now he lives in New York and rents a car when he comes to Virginia.

My younger son, John, also had a special car – a red and black 1968 VW hatchback named Carl. He bought it after he graduated from VMI and was attending medical school at UVA. Carl was rather shabby and spent a lot of time in the shop. On John’s first date with Amye, the nursing student who eventually became his wife, he asked her to reach in the glove compartment and get his flashlight. “Now hold it out the window,” he said, “my headlights don’t work.” Then he laughed and told his shocked date it was only a joke. “I need it to see the dashboard, so I know what speed I’m doing,” he explained. That’s how Amye learned what a practical joker John is. She married him anyway.

I don’t have any worthy car stories about Kathy or myself – I think it’s a male thing.

Contact Mary Jo [email protected]

Mary Jo Shannon

I know I have said in this column before but I will say it again - summer is

my favorite season! The weather allows us to do so much. But a little cold should not stop us from being "out there," for No-vember is really an exceptional time of year in SW Virginia . . . The leaves crunching under our feet; the sensation of cool air fill-ing our lungs; the color of the falling leaves that give the days an orange glow that appears so other worldly.

In the last week I have been reminded by four friends how amazing this time of year can be - my wonderful reflective friends who wouldn’t dream of allowing the beauty of the day to slip past them. The timing of their com-ments was perfect and just what I needed, for I have been nursing my sick children back to health, one of whom had pneumonia.

I needed to hear about the other world out there. Because even when our world seems to press down on us there is anoth-er world right outside our win-dows that whispers - it is all go-ing to be ok. It is undoubtedly a gift – that world just outside my routine and "everyday" window. There is no question of that. The question is, if and how I receive that gift.

One friend said – the leaves with all their colors are God reminding us of how much He loves us – a vibrant message of love and hope - just before the bleak winter sets in.

Another friend spoke of the leaves beautifully falling to the ground like the saints who have gone before us.

Yet another friend who lives

in Baltimore told me of her noisy city and reminded me how lucky I was to live in Roanoke.

The last but certainly not least of friends told me as she jogged by the river that she had a glimpse into heaven as the sun beautifully sparkled off the cool water.

All of this over the course of a couple of days from people who had simply not forgotten to pay attention. I suppose the Good Lord is trying to tell me something. One of those things being I am blessed to have such friends surrounding me and the other may be a reminder to find the beauty in all of the seasons of life.

A gift of Fall can be found in this wild mushroom soup from the Barefoot Contessa. Enjoy it’s unique beauty and it’s warmth as the days grow chillier!

5 ounces fresh shiitake mush-rooms 5 ounces fresh portobello mushrooms 5 ounces fresh cremini (or porcini) mushrooms 1 tablespoon good olive oil 1/4 pound (1 stick) plus 1 table-spoon unsalted butter, divided 1 cup chopped yellow onion 1 carrot, chopped 1 sprig fresh thyme plus 1 teaspoon minced thyme leaves, divided Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 2 cups chopped leeks, white and light green parts (2 leeks) 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup dry white wine 1 cup half-and-half 1 cup heavy cream 1/2 cup minced fresh flat-leaf

parsley Clean the mushrooms by wip-

ing them with a dry paper towel. Don't wash them! Separate the stems, trim off any bad parts, and coarsely chop the stems. Slice the mushroom caps 1/4-inch thick and, if there are big, cut them into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.

To make the stock, heat the olive oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large pot. Add the chopped mushroom stems, the onion, carrot, the sprig of thyme, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper and cook over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Add 6 cups water, bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and sim-mer uncovered for 30 minutes. Strain, reserving the liquid. You should have about 4 1/2 cups of stock. If not, add some water.

Meanwhile, in another large pot, heat the remaining 1/4 pound of butter and add the leeks. Cook over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until the leeks begin to brown. Add the sliced mushroom caps and cook for 10 minutes, or until they are browned and tender. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute. Add the white wine and stir for another minute, scraping the bottom of the pot. Add the mushroom stock, minced thyme leaves, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the half-and-half, cream, and pars-ley, season with salt and pepper, to taste, and heat through but do not boil. Serve hot.

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In a lecture I heard a cou-ple of years ago, Dr. Mar-garet Mills contrasted the

two main ways Christians un-derstand grace with an illustra-tion that has been used before in various faith traditions. She said that the two main views on grace can be seen in two moth-ers; one a monkey and the other a cat. Think of how each mother carries her infant. The mother monkey carries her infant on her back. The mother cat car-ries her infant by the scruff of the neck.

In both cases, the infant is dependent on the mother. But with the monkey, a cooperative effort is needed. The mother does most of the work, but the baby needs to make a decision, climb on the mother’s back and hang on.

Now consider the kitten. With the kitten, there is no deci-sion, no effort and no hanging on. The kitten is just picked up and hangs there as the mother takes it where they need to go.

Baby monkey; an experience of conditional grace.

Kitten; An experience of sheer grace.

By which grace- conditional or sheer grace- are we saved?

In a way, the debate over baptism mirrors this split. The mother monkey argument: Yes, we are saved by the grace of God. Still, we have a decision to make. We have to climb on board, and then hang on and go where God leads us. Baptism marks the decision.

And then there is the Mother Cat argument: Salvation is com-pletely a gift of God. We are sin-ners without hope, elected by a mysterious providence. What seems like a decision is itself an outcome of God’s grace at work within us. Baptism should mark God’s choice, not ours.

What do you think?I won’t take sides in the de-

bate in this column, but I do want to address one argument made against the Mother Cat view: that a choice has to be made because it is the threat of damnation that leads to God.

Scriptures do present a moral universe with a fabric within which is woven threat and con-sequence. Not always in our time, but in God’s time, there is judgment. The road to faith for many does begin with facing consequences. To say grace pre-vails does not mean that judg-ment is not real. As a child, I knew my parents loved me, but

that didn’t keep me from being punished.

I do not, however, buy into the argument that it is only that threat woven into the fabric of the moral universe that keeps us loving and serving God. A different way of putting this ar-gument is that the only reason we choose selflessly to love God and others is our own selfish desire to be spared damnation. That doesn’t make sense to me intellectually or personally.

In a sermon he preached at his church in Kansas City, Tom Are Jr. told of not being able to contact his father on “Father’s Day.” He tried calling, but his father didn’t answer. He left a message saying, “Happy Father’s Day. I love you and want you to know I appreciate you.” Tom knew, though, that his father probably wouldn’t hear his mes-sage. His dad forgets how to retrieve his messages. He says, “They get lost in my cell phone.” But, at least Tom tried.

He tried, but it didn’t work. When Tom woke up the next day, he saw that he had a mes-sage. Here is the message his dad left: “Well, I’m going to bed now, but I just thought I would call and wish you a Happy Fa-ther’s Day. Being a father my-self, I know it’s nice to hear that. Hope your children have been good to you today. Take care.

It’s dad--- your dad.”Tom said to his wife, Carol,

“Dad didn’t get my message.” She said, “That’s too bad. You are definitely out of the will now.” They laughed.

And then Tom asked his con-gregation, “What would you think of me if I told you that the reason I would call my dad on Father’s Day is to make sure he remembered me in his will- and the reason I send him a card on his birthday and a gift certificate to the bookstore at Christmas- is because I want to be in his will?”

Personally, I would think that Tom’s love- or his professed love- for his father is really self-ish. He says what he thinks he needs to say and does what he thinks his dad would want him to do, so that he will inherit money and stuff.

If love of God is not one’s mo-tivation, can what one has even be called faith? What I pray grace works in me is to draw me ever deeper into a relationship with God where love is what claims me and directs me.

How about you?

George Anderson is the Senior Minister at Second Presbyterian Church, visit them on the web at spres.orgAt Your Service!

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New Energy Technologies, Inc have successfully debuted the Company's latest MotionPow-er-Express system, the world's first-of-its-kind rumble strip, capable of generating sustain-able electricity. The Civic Cen-ter debut marks the first of several test and demonstration events the Company plans to conduct in partnership with the City.

"The City of Roanoke takes seriously its responsibility to be good stewards of the envi-ronment and is always look-ing for unique ways to meet our mission of increased sus-tainability," said Ken Cronin, Director of General Services/Sustainability for the City of Roanoke.. "We are proud to be the first city in the nation to test this novel technology with the potential to make the way we produce energy more clean and green."

Nearly 6000 visitors and over 580 vehicles participated in the demonstration event at the Roanoke Civic Center, with each driver activating New Energy's patent pending MotionPower Express System. As drivers slowed down, or came to a stop, their vehicle tires depressed small rumble strip-like treadles, allowing for the capture of kinetic en-ergy. This captured energy was converted to electricity, which powered a series of brightly il-luminated lights displayed to drivers.

Engineering estimates show an optimized and installed MotionPower System experi-encing a traffic pattern similar to the 6-hour event, could pro-duce enough sustainable elec-tricity to power lights for the average American home for an

entire day. In commercial ap-plications, the same electric-ity could power a 150 square foot sports-venue electronic billboard or marquee for an entire day.

"The MotionPower-Express was safely demonstrated to over 580 vehicles attend-ing events on Saturday," said Robyn Schon, General Man-ager of the Roanoke Civic Center. "Visitors were excited to learn more about the tech-nology and to help the City of Roanoke in its mission to implement green energy ini-tiatives. "

"We applaud and thank the City of Roanoke for their vi-sion and cooperation in mak-ing this a successful demon-stration," said John Conklin, President and CEO of New Energy Technologies, Inc. "I especially want to thank the hundreds drivers and thou-sands of participants who helped us green the City, one car at a time."

MotionPower-Express can be designed for a range of speeds based on traffic pat-tern and the amount of energy required for a specific appli-cation. These applications may include: sport and enter-tainment venues, solid waste transfer stations, fleet vehicle maintenance facilities, trans-portation depots, airports (passenger arrival and de-parture areas), parking lots, border crossings, exit ramps, neighborhoods with traffic calming zones, rest areas, toll booths, and travel plazas.

"MotionPower can offset the city's cost of operating traffic control devices, such as traf-fic signals and street lights," said Mark Jamison, City of Roanoke Manager of Trans-

portation. "This innovative partnership with New Energy Technologies has the potential to provide a more sustainable environment, while simulta-neously conserving strained budgets of cities across the na-tion."

More than 250 million vehicles are registered in America and an estimated 6 billion miles are driven on our nation's roads every day. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration nearly 70 percent of America's electricity is generated by nat-ural gas and coal. The environ-mental impact of greenhouse gas emissions and the rising cost of those non-renewable fuels, along with the potential doubling of global electricity consumption in the coming years, require the urgent need for creative, sustainable meth-ods of generating electricity. The prospect of sustainably converting vehicle motion and deceleration (vehicle energy) into electricity represents sig-nificant positive environmen-tal impact and alternative en-ergy opportunities.

Inaugural Tails & Trails 5K Run Gets “Paws Up”

The first annual Big Lick Vet “Tails & Trails K9 5K Run” was held last Saturday at North Cross School on their cross country course in Roa-noke County. Participants could walk the one mile or run the 5K course with their dog. Families were encouraged to sign up and bring their dogs, which brought a fun dimen-sion and focus to the event, but

dogs were not necessary to par-ticipate.

Lots of families turned out, with kids of all ages, many with their pooches appropriately at-tired in canine fleece sweaters

to ward off the cold start to a perfect autumn day.

Big Lick Veterinary Services put on the race that benefitted the Virginia Canine Recov-ery Team, based in Roanoke, Virginia. The Virginia Canine Recovery Team (VCRT) is a volunteer team that works closely with federal, state, lo-cal and volunteer groups in an effort to reunite families and

their missing loved ones. Their mission is to serve as a first re-sponder team in local and na-tional disasters, and to supply Law Enforcement and missing person agencies with highly

skilled and professional human remains detection dog teams for the purpose of investigating missing persons and homicide cases.

Big Lick Veterinary Services is close to this cause as two of their K9 patients are on the search and rescue team. Their handler, Karen ReMine, is a close friend of the Harrington family whose daughter, Mor-gan Dana Harrington was trag-ically abducted and murdered in October 2009 while attend-ing a concert at John Paul Jones Arena on the University of Vir-ginia campus. ReMine was in-spired to donate her time after watching the dogs participate in Morgan’s search.

Tails and Trails, the first race of its kind in the region, looks to make it an annual event. Judy Pennino, who brought her three dogs, held onto two of them while her husband Larry ran with “Duke.” Pennino had planned to run before injuring an ankle. She said, “Big Lick is our vet, and we signed up for this a while back. This is awe-some; next year it will be crazy big!”

Visit www.virginiarecovery-dogs.com or www.BigLickVet.com, (540.776.0700) for more information.

Downtown Residents Respond To Survey - More Units Needed

Now that property eligible for state tax credits has dried up, Ed Walker has ended his downtown development efforts and the pipeline of new housing stock is shrinking. It will now be an effort to fill the demand and sustain the supply.

The Economic Development Authority helped fund a down-town housing market study in conjunction with Downtown Roanoke Inc. DRI CEO Sean Luther presented the results to Roanoke City council members on Monday.

A survey was sent to over 400 downtown residents with 19.5% of them responding. Over 32% of those were 20-29 years of age. The smallest age group 70-79 comprised 2.7% of the respon-dents. The average age was 41, Caucasian and 60% male.

Over 80% had college degrees with average income of $65,000. Most who chose to move down-town came from outside the city limits but still within the Roa-noke Region – 17.8% moved to Roanoke from out-of-state.

More condominiums and townhouses are needed accord-ing to respondents with Elm-wood Park being the most cov-eted amenity followed closely by the greenway and the Taubman Museum. Downtown residents wanted a convenient grocery and drug store.

Negatives cited by the resi-dents were loiterers especially around the bus station. The extra charge for parking drew a few comments. Luther said that only 56% of downtown residents occupied city-owned spaces. “Some residents don’t own cars,” said assistant man-ager Brian Townsend.

All respon-dents cited the urban lifestyle and trolley as an incen-tive for living d o w n t o w n . They wanted to see more trolley routes. To add one trolley would cost $500,000 said Luther. Council mem-ber Ray Ferris thought charging for the trolley might help but Luther pointed out that Carilion was paying most of the operating cost. Peo-ple would be less likely to use it if they needed a pass or change thought Luther.

Connecting Old Southwest however might give an opportu-nity to institute a charge outside of the normal service district.

“The condominium pipeline is almost empty,” said Luther. Apartment leases are at 100% and are occupied by a younger demographic.

“The Commonwealth His-toric Tax Credit program al-most singularly is responsible for making these [building] deals work,” said Luther. He warned that the city is getting to the point where it has exhausted the supply of eligible buildings. Apartments could use the Fed-eral Historic tax credits because they were income producing projects explained Townsend. Owned condominiums and sin-gle housing structures can only use state historic tax credits.

The tax credits have made downtown growth possible. There is no local incentive that

can replace a 45% historic tax credit said Townsend.

Strategically identifying op-portunities to infill “is going to become very important if we’re going to continue this push,” said Luther. Currently down-town is “hugely skewed toward apartments.”

Affordable townhouses are needed. Existing stock is “ex-tremely high end at $600,000 and up,” he said. Luther iden-tified the South Jefferson cor-ridor as a good location for at-tached connected single family housing. Luther called it a “step down transition planning area” to Old Southwest.

There is a dwindling supply of new apartment units coming online. He said that was needed it to increase the developer re-cruitment strategy.

Luther concluded that single family attached housing prod-ucts would open up new mar-kets for downtown living. “Not everyone wants to live in a multi-unit structure,” he said.

Large buildings eligible for historic tax credits are tapped out. City manager Chris Morrill said, “our biggest challenge is surface lots. When you look at downtown, 30% plus is surface parking lots. That’s where the opportunities are.”

“You have no idea anyone is living downtown,” said Luther. As in single family residents there are no awnings or window boxes or signs of residential liv-ing. Shiny glass is how people think of downtown living now he said. Left and South of the Market building there are op-portunities to integrate new architecture of the more single-family residential types.

Morrill said that a connec-tion between the Virginia Tech – Carilion Medical Campus to downtown is where transitional housing can fill the gap.

Sean Luther discusses housing strategies.

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Owners and dogs alike listen intently to the course instructions.


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Hidden Valley Downs Cave Spring In 41-39 Overtime Thriller

Hidden Valley battled back from a 27-7 sec-ond quarter deficit with 20 unanswered points, as the Titans knocked off Cave Spring 41-39 in double overtime at Dwight Bogle Stadium Fri-day night.

Hidden Valley looked to be headed for a long night when Cave Spring quarterback Tony Sim-mons scored on keepers from 45 and 9 yards out to stake the Knights to a quick 12-0 lead midway through the opening quarter.

Although Hidden Valley cut the deficit to 12-7 late in the first on a Michael Simonic 28-yard run and Landon Dermott point after, Cave Spring responded with a Simmons 77-yard scamper to up the advantage to 19-7 early in the second quarter.

On the subsequent kickoff, things only got worse for the Titans when the kick was mis-handled resulting in a Cave Spring safety. The Knights followed the free kick with a 48-yard lightning bolt by running back Sam Wright, his

29th touchdown of the season. In a matter of 1:27, Cave Spring had jumped to a 27-7 lead and was looking for the knockout punch.

Hidden Valley, however, produced the un-likliest of turnarounds. Titan wide receiver Dee Fletcher brought in a 26-yard touchdown toss from Simonic late in the second quarter that sent the teams to the locker room with Cave Spring still looking comfortable, up 27-14.

The second half belonged to Hidden Valley as Cave Spring kept itself in bad field position with problems in the kicking game and un-timely penalties. Shane Foley caught a 16-yard touchdown strike from Simonic to get Hidden Valley within striking distance heading to the

final frame. Simonic plowed through the line from one yard out late in the fourth, but a missed PAT left the teams tied at 27, and head-ing to overtime.

Both teams scored in the first overtime, and both followed their respective touchdowns by having their extra point attempts blocked. The Hidden Valley offense took to the field first in the second overtime, and Simonic threw to a wide open Foley from 6-yards out. Hidden Val-ley opted for a two-point conversion with Si-monic finding an equally open Fletcher in the right side of the end zone.

Cave Spring scored on its turn in the second OT, with Simmons finding the end zone from two yards out, his fifth TD of the contest. The prospect of a third extra period ended when Simmons was stopped inches short on the req-uisite 2-point attempt.

Cave Spring piled up a huge 371-83 advan-tage in rushing yards with Wright picking up 189 on 30 carries, and Simmons accounting for 190 on 20 quarterback keepers. Mason Der-mott led the Hidden Valley ground attack with 74 yards on 11 carries. Wright surpassed the 2,000-yard rushing mark for the season late in the first half.

The Titans controlled the airways, 150-0, with Simonic connecting on 12-of-24 attempts. Jake Kite and Foley each had 3 catches for 49 and 48 yards respectively.

Hidden Valley (6-4) opens regional play this Friday as the Bassett Bengals visit Bogle Sta-dium for a rematch of a week-five contest won by the Titans 28-21. Cave Spring (7-3) has a first-round bye before returning to action next week.

Cave Spring quarterback #7 Tony Simmons sidesteps Hidden Valley defender #43 Kyle Stanley in Friday's double-overtime shootout.

Hidden Valley freshman running back #2 Ma-son Dermott picks up yardage in the Titan's win over the Knights.

By Bill Turner [email protected]

North Cross Tops VES -Advances to Playoffs

Patriots Advance in Northwest Region Volleyball With Win Over Broad Run

Patrick Henry may become the comeback kids.

After falling behind two games to one, and trailing 4-0 in the deciding 15-point fifth-game tiebreaker, the Patriots pulled off the 3-2 win over Broad Run in the Northwest Region volleyball quarterfinal at Patrick Henry Tuesday night.

The Patriots entertain Forest Park tonight (Thursday) with a spot in the state quarterfinals go-ing to the winner.

Outside hitter Sarah Miller led the PH attack with 17 kills, while senior Elizabeth Higgs added 12. Libero Morgan Robison paced the Patriot back line with 18 digs.

PH libero Morgan Robison gets the Patriots psyched up before their match Tuesday night.

Patrick Henry setter #2 Caro-line Brailsford sets the table for a Patriot point against Broad Run.

Knights Advance in Region IV VolleyballCave Spring hardly worked

up a sweat Tuesday night as the Knights methodically dispatched Bassett 3-0 in the Region IV vol-leyball quarterfinal at the Cave Spring gym. The entire match lasted less than an hour.

A good thing, according to Cave Spring head coach Ta-malyn Tanis. "Everyone on our team is sick," Tanis noted after-ward. "The girls are congested. I just wanted to get this one over and send everyone home to get some rest."

Cave Spring moves on to face River Ridge foe Blacksburg Thursday night at Tunstall High School. Blacksburg advanced with a 3-0 win over Richlands Tuesday. Cave Spring defeated the Bruins twice in the regular season by matching 3-0 scores.

In the other Region IV bracket, Hidden Valley defeated Carroll County 3-0 and will take on Pat-rick County Thursday at Tunstall. Should Cave Spring and Hidden Valley win Thursday, it will set up the fifth meeting between the Roanoke County schools in the regional final expected to be played at Salem High School on Saturday.

Cave Spring totally dominated

Bassett in all phases of the match Tuesday. The Bengals had no answer for the Knight's power game as reflected in the 25-10; 25-7; 25-13 sweep. What few points Bassett could muster came mostly on Cave Spring unforced errors. "I'll take the unforced er-rors," Tanis said. "We were get-ting good kills, and I wanted to keep the players moving."

Morgan Shannon led the Knight attack with 14 kills and

11 digs, while Kelsey Sine added 9 kills and 3 blocks. Shannon Craighead set the Cave Spring offense with 31 assists and scat-tered the Bassett back line with 8 service aces.

Cave Spring junior #8 Alyssa McKinley serves a point-winner Tuesday night in the Knight's 3-game sweep.

Knights front liners #1 Shan-non Craighead and #11 Kelsey Sine reject a Bassett shot in the Region IV quarterfinal.



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The North Cross Raiders ended their regular season with a 34-0 romp over Virginia Epis-copal School where Coach Ste-phen Alexander was previously the Offensive Coordinator. The Raiders jumped out to a 28-0

halftime lead and then coasted to the win that locked them in as the number 3 seed in the VISAA Div III football playoffs. North Cross will travel to Fred-ericksburg this Saturday where they will take on undefeated

and #2 ranked Fredericksburg Christian in a matchup set for 2 PM. If the Raiders get the victory they will face the winner of the Isle of Wight / Norfolk Chris-

tian game also being played this Saturday. The Raiders defeated talent laden Norfolk Christian (4 UVA signees) earlier this year by a score of 34-27.

Photo by Amy Murray

North Cross running back Evan Anderson picks up some of his 103 rushing yards as tackle Paul Smith (on Anderson's im-mediate left) and others clear the way.

Photo by Amy Murray

George Revercomb and Paul Smith work together to bring down a VES running back as #51 Tommy Girani looks on.

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Vipers Are Sandlot Super Bowl ChampsThe North Roanoke Little

League Vipers took on the Bo-tetourt Little League Broncos in the 29th Annual Jim Carroll Regional Sandlot Football Su-per Bowl championships last Saturday at the Salem Stadium. The Vipers defeated the Bron-cos 20-8 to become the 2011 Regional Little League Sandlot Super Bowl Champions.

More than 1,700 youth, ages 6-14, participated on football teams and cheerleading squads throughout the Roanoke Valley competing for the opportunity to become Super Bowl cham-pions. Recreational teams from the City of Salem, Botetourt County, Roanoke County, City of Roanoke, Franklin County, Bedford County, City of Bed-ford and Craig County compet-ed in this year’s Super Bowl.

Vipers’ (12-1) Mason Mc-Neese scored in the first quarter to make it 7-0. Botetourt scored in the second quarter and kicked for a two point conversion mak-ing the score 8 -7 at the half for Botetourt. McNeese scored again in the third quarter to make it 13-8, Vipers. McNeese

scored his third touchdown of the game in the fourth quarter to give North Roanoke the 20-8 win and the championship tro-phy.

This season's North Roanoke Vipers team included Josiah Robinson, Jordan Wooden, Ma-son McNeese, T.J. Lee, Aaron Moore, Quentin Slash, Ash-ton Waid, Will Harlow, Ethan Blank, Austin Blank, Vincent Keeling, Carter Hupp, Daniel Frances, Jacob Arrington, Isaac

Martin, Kobe Bishop, Caleb Eubank, Graham Powell, Isa-iah Stephens, Jake Thompson, Michael Elliott, Jason Stanley, Nathan Lemon, Dustin Curtiss, Bryce Hall and Shane Bivens. The team was coached by Solan Wooden (head coach) and as-sistant coaches Tim Stephens, Greg McNeese, Chad Martin, Larry Harlow and Ray Robin-son.

By David [email protected]

Yankee-Bound Hidden Valley Alum Returns Home

On the cusp of a fifth minor league season af-ter graduating from Hid-den Valley High School, left-handed pitcher Mikey O’Brien is slowly but surely working his way up through the New York Yankees farm sys-tem. O’Brien, pegged as a starter by the Yankees at this point, spent the 2011 season in Class A ball, splitting his time between Charleston (SC) and Tampa. O’Brien has already played with a major leaguer- Yankees third baseman Eric Chavez, a mul-tiple Gold Glove winner, had a rehabilitation start for the Tam-pa Yankees while O’Brien was on the mound.

“He was a down to earth guy,” recalls O’Brien, who has met many of the New York Yankees in spring training. “They’ve all been in our shoes, they know what its like to grind it out in minor league baseball.”

O’Brien is back in town dur-ing the off-season for a while, and, as he has done for the past three years, he and some base-ball buddies helped ex-Cave Spring High School baseball head coach Randy Boone put on a youth baseball clinic last weekend at Hidden Valley.

The event raised money for the Juveniles Diabetes Founda-tion, a charity close to O’Brien’s heart: he was diagnosed with the disease as a high school senior and now wears an insulin pump after formerly having to undergo

daily injections. O’Brien takes the snacks he needs on the road with him to help manage his di-abetes and said the Yankees or-ganization “has the best trainers in the world that are looking af-ter me every day,” to make sure he stays on track. He hasn’t let diabetes sideline him: “you can’t use it as an excuse.” The annual clinic has raised about $3000 to date for the JDF.

Brothers Dale and Brett Mol-lenauer (Dale plays in the mi-nor leagues with the Orioles, and Brett plays for Radford, Jared King (now playing base-ball at UVA) and Cam Hodge (another Hidden Valley alum now playing at Radford) helped O’Brien tutor a small group of young baseball players at Hid-den Valley. King also told the group about playing twice in the College World Series with the University of Virginia, saying it was “like Christmas morning,” for a week and a half.

“They know the importance of fundamentals,” said Boone,

who has also scouted for major league teams. “This is an opportunity for them to come back and help the younger kids. They remember [how important] it was to them at this age.” Get-ting O’Brien to come in and lead the clinic hasn’t been difficult – in fact the young pitcher pushed Boone to set it up: “he wanted to do it.”

O’Brien used to hang out as a youngster at the Cave Spring base-

ball field, watching his older brother Eric – who used to play for Boone at Cave Spring. “He looked up to [older players].” Boone prefers that young ath-letes try their hand at a variety of sports. “Don’t specify [too early]. You’re not sure what your body’s going to do,” he warns. But spending some time on the fundamentals of baseball in the fall can’t hurt.

As for O’Brien’s march to-wards Yankee Stadium, he is “right on schedule. That’s what I’ve been told. The main thing is staying healthy.” O’Brien shut it down a bit early last season with tendon inflammation in his forearm but has escaped major injury problems to date. “Keep moving up,” vows O’Brien, who hopes to win a slot in Double-A Trenton next spring. Pitchers have been called up from Dou-ble-A to the majors before, but O’Brien is just trying to focus on his next start. “I’m sure if I got a start in Yankee Stadium in the next few years it would be a little different,” he concedes.

Still seen as a starter by the big club, O’Brien is okay if the Yankees decide they want him to be a relief pitcher: “as long as I get to go out on that mound. [My] goal is to be a major league pitcher. That’s all that matters.” O’Brien wants to sharpen his control next season, keep pitch counts down and throw more strikes.

Meanwhile he was happy to return to Hidden Valley, leading a youth clinic for players who later asked for his autograph. “We’ve all been sitting in those bleachers with other guys talk-ing to us. We [remember] what it’s like. It’s definitely cool to come back.”


Mikey O’Brien tutors a young camper at Hidden Valley.

The 2011 Little League Sandlot Super Bowl Champions.

Wild Bill’s Weekly Sports Roundup

7815 Williamson Rd. Roanoke Va. 24019 www.communityschool.net 540.563.5036

Regional football playoffs begin with seven of our elev-en area teams advancing to postseason play that begins this Friday night. Two teams, Northside and Cave Spring, earned first-round byes and can rest up before return-ing to action Novem-ber 18th.

Last week, the great predictor checked in at 6-1, with the only miss coming in the dou-ble overtime victory by Hidden Valley over rival Cave Spring. That finished the regular season with a not-too-shabby 73-17 performance.

This year was a well-bal-anced effort, combining my trusty crystal ball with an occasional infusion of infor-mation by the ever-mystic Ouija board. Throw in the week-eight 11-0 record via a perfectly held seance, and you can easily see why I continue to point out that predictions should be left to the profes-sionals.

Enough chatter and moan-ing from the other side - let's take a look at this week's five playoff matchups.

Bassett at Hidden Valley: A rematch of a week-five game won by the Titans, 28-21, played in Bassett. Bassett got in with a 3-7 record and Hid-den Valley carries momentum from its win over Cave Spring. May be more of a struggle than first glance. Hidden Valley- 27 Bassett- 19

Pulaski County at Salem: Pulaski comes to Salem Sta-dium for the second time in as many weeks. At 1-9, Pu-

laski may be the first regional playoff team in memory to finish the season with double-digit losses. Salem- 30 Pulaski County- 16

Glenvar at Giles: The Highlanders make their second trek to Giles County hoping for better results than the first visit. At 9-1, Giles looks to be too strong when having the home field advan-

tage again. Giles- 36 Glenvar- 27

North Cross at Fredericks-burg Christian: The Raiders backed away from no one in their impressive 7-3 season. Undefeated Fredericksburg has lit up the scoreboard, go-ing 9-0. This VIS Division III Saturday matchup should be a dandy. North Cross- 28 Fred-ericksburg Ch.- 27

Roanoke Catholic at Greenbrier Christian: This VIS Division IV game offers a Roanoke Catholic team that has played 11 games against a Greenbrier team that has only played 8; and, the Greenbrier Gators' three losses were by a combined margin of 106 points. The more you play, the better you get. Catholic rolls. Roanoke Catholic- 34 Green-brier- 15

Now, to the mailbag where playoff questions take center stage, and one reader ques-tions my fashion statements.

Dear Wild Bill: Do you think the playoffs have be-come watered down in recent years? (George/Salem)

Answer: No doubt, George. In Group A alone, 23 teams making the playoffs this year

did not have winning records.Dear Mr. Prediction Man:

What's been your worst play-off prediction to date? (Ken/Rocky Mount)

Answer: No question about this one, Ken- last year's re-gional semifinal between Grundy and Cave Spring. When the Golden Wave faith-ful got hold of the Star-Senti-nel prior to the game and saw I picked Cave by 35, the moms were waiting for me outside the Grundy locker room. No matter Cave Spring actually won 50-14; they still wanted my scalp! The Cave Spring coaching staff, who are still laughing, provided me safe ha-ven as I ducked into the shad-ows of Bogle Stadium.

Dear Mr. Volleyball ana-lyst: The word on the street is that you've been offered bribes by the Cave Spring and Hid-den Valley fans to promote their great volleyball teams. Any truth to those allegations? (Ralph/residence unclear)

Answer: Yes, Ralph, I do live in that district and I promise to fight AEP rate hikes. I'm bad, really bad. But I look good in Knight and Titan gear-so why fight it? For the record, I'm so relieved the mudslinging po-litical quips are over. And, I approved this ad.

Send your questions and party affiliation to:

[email protected]

Bill Turner


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Arts & culturenewsRoanoke.com 11/11/11 -11/17/11 |The Roanoke Star-Sentinel |Page 9

The City of Roanoke, along with the Roanoke Arts Commission, Roanoke Public Libraries, Op-era Roanoke, and the Harrison Museum of Afri-can American Culture came together last week to dedicate a tree on the grounds of the Gainsboro Branch Library. The "Joe Green" Tree Project was scheduled as part of National Opera Week, and honors a tradition in which the family of Ital-ian composer Giuseppe Verdi would plant a tree for each new opera he wrote. The tree also sets in motion plans to enhance the landscaping in the area around the "Reading Garden" sculpture, which was installed at the Gainsboro Branch Li-brary in November 2009. A mix of music lovers, library patrons, environmental advocates and residents of the neighborhood attended the dedi-cation, which was followed by a program of mu-sic and discussion with representatives of Opera Roanoke.

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World Premiere of “Miss Lucy” Celebrates Roanoke History

Community High School and the bluegrass group Blue Mule will co-present the world premiere staging of the folk opera, “Miss Lucy,” November 17-19, at the June M. McBroom Theatre (302 Campbell Ave SE). With music by bluegrass master Tom Ohmsen and acclaimed jazz pianist William Penn, “Miss Lucy” tells the story of Roanoke educator and pioneer Lucy Ad-dison.

“Miss Lucy” centers on the night of Dec. 16, 1890, when a blizzard grips the Roanoke city market and the Supreme Court sends down its “Separate but Equal” decision, freezing freedom for black Ameri-cans. A lone man, Pisces auf Gut-gluck, insists on fishing along Sa-lem Ave., while the railroad workers explain that fish-ing in the street is a waste of time. Gus the bookseller sells his wares, and Miss Lucy Addison arrives for another school day.

But this day will be different; this will be the day that Cap-

tain J.T. Burke fi-nally achieves his goal of shutting down Miss Lu-cy’s school. Miss Lucy is Lucy Ad-dison, a teacher, sage and pioneer. But can she keep her school open against such fierce opposition? Brav-ery and a traveling scarf help save the day in this bluegrass folk opera for all ages.

Hollins University voice ma-jor Helena Brown sings the opera’s title role, while San Francisco Op-era tenor Benja-min Bongers sings as Miss Lucy’s nemesis, Captain J.T. Burke. Mezzo soprano Ada Lis Jimena tackles the “pants” role of Pisces auf Gutg-luck and baritone

Drew Dowdy performs the hopeful bookseller, Gus. Bari-tones Aaron Sifford and T.J. Anderson round out the cast as the diviner, Doc Wise, and the

Sandwich Board Man respectfully.

Maestra Shelbie Whal, director of choral activities at Hollins Univer-sity, will conduct the opera’s cast and chorus and Blue Mule (Tom Ohmsen, man-dolin; John Mc-Broom, bass; Ely

Williams, guitar and Tim Rhodes, banjo) will ac-company the opera along with pianist Cara Modisett. Commu-nity High School teacher, and the opera’s librettist, Les Epstein, directs the opera. Roanoke na-tive and Philadelphia-based artist Colette Fu has designed a pop-up book set design, with scenery painted by CHS teach-er and acclaimed artist Brian Counihan.

“Miss Lucy” opens Thursday, Nov. 17 with a performance at 7:30 p.m., followed by a 7:30 per-formance on Nov. 18 and a 3:00 matinee Nov. 19, followed by a talk-back panel with singers, pro-duction team and guests. Tickets to the opera are $5 and can be purchased at the door.

Helena Brown

Benjamin Bongers

Opera Roanoke's General & Artistic Director Scott Williamson (left) prepares to toss a shovel of mulch onto the bed of a recently planted Scarlet Oak at the Gainsboro Branch Library, while City Council member Anita Price (right, in shadow) raises a shovel of dirt.

Acclaimed flutists Lady Jeanne Galway, RSO flutist Julee Hich-cock, Sir James Galway, and RSO Executive Director Beth Pline are pictured at a reception given for the visiting artists after their sellout concert at the Roanoke Performing Arts Center. Both the Galways and the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra members received well deserved standing ovations from the very appreci-ate audience.

Galways Receive Standing Ovation

Photo by Jim Bullington

A Sea of Patriotism-Preparing for Our Heroes

Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1264, along with members of the Patrick Henry ROTC helped remember our veterans by planting flags on the graves of members of the armed forces at Evergreen Cemetery Wednes-day morning.

Over 4,000 veterans are in-terred at Evergreen, including veterans of the Civil War and Spanish-American War. Sixteen PH ROTC members under the direction of Lieutenant Colo-nel Steven Boyd and Sergeant Mills assisted in Wednesday's ceremony.

"This is our way of preparing for our heroes," Judy Shorter, President of VFW Post 1264 Women's Auxiliary noted dur-ing the event.

American flags were placed on the graves of veterans at Ever-green Cemetery in honor of Veterans Day.

Marshall Moore (left), a combat wounded Vietnam Purple Heart recipient, and President of VFW Post 1264, joins Jim Warren in distributing flags to veterans interred at Evergreen. Warren, a WWII signal corps photogra-pher, followed General MacAr-thur into Japan during the final weeks of the war.


The Avett Brothers Coming to Virginia Tech

Folk-pop band the Avett Brothers will appear at Virginia Tech's Burruss Auditorium on Tuesday, Nov. 15.

The Avett Brothers formed in 2001 in North Carolina with brothers Seth and Scott Avett on guitar and banjo and stand-up bass player Bob Crawford. The band has since added cel-list Joe Kwon to its lineup, and they have gone on to record with producer Rick Rubin, who is credited with reviving bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Johnny Cash. They have also opened on several occa-sions for the Dave Matthews Band and have sold out venues across the country.

Their sound has been de-scribed by the San Francisco Chronicle as having "the heavy sadness of Townes Van Zandt, the light pop concision of Bud-dy Holly, the tuneful jangle of the Beatles, and the raw energy of the Ramones. They released their major label debut, "I and Love and You," in 2009 to rave reviews, and Rolling Stone mag-

azine named the band a 2009 Artist to Watch.

Opening for the Avett Broth-ers is the Boston-based band David Wax Museum, featur-ing Virginia native Suz Slezak playing a traditional Mexican percussion instrument called a donkey jawbone. TIME maga-zine describes the band as "joy-ful Mexo-Americana fusion, with virtuosic musical skill and virtuous harmonies."

Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and the show begins at 7:30 p.m. with opening band David Wax Museum. Tickets are $25 for Virginia Tech students, $11 for

children 12 and under, and $39 for general admission. Tickets can be purchased online or at the box office in Squires Student Center.

Free parking for the show is available around the Drillfield with a visitor's pass from 5-8 p.m. No pass is necessary on the Drillfield after 8 p.m. or on week-ends. Parking is also available in the Perry Street lots and the Perry Street Parking Garage near Pric-es Fork Road. Find more parking information online at parking.vt.edu) or call 540-231-3200


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Revamped Big Lick Breakfast Club Focuses on GivingRetooling a former Kiwanis

affiliated group was a big step for Bob Bersch and his long-time Kiwanis comrades, but they are satisfied with the new group they have formed, now affectionately known as “The Millionaires Club.” Bersch et al are a group of men, many re-tired, who came to realize that while they had long enjoyed Kiwanis and still hold them in high esteem, they wanted to better use their club dues.

By dropping out of Kiwan-is, they could actually lower the dues and still have more funds to contribute to local projects, which is a primary focus. Bersch says the group is comprised of men who are from all sorts of backgrounds,

including lawyers, doctors, folks who are retired from GE, APCO; “they come from all across the board.” The move made sense, so as of October 1, they formed the new group which Bersch describes as “more of a fellowship group than a true civic club.”

The group’s new official name is “The Big Lick Break-fast Club,” but “The Million-aires Club” is their nickname that better catches the spirit of the group—“A million smiles and a million happy times. If you added the financial net worth of all our members to-gether, you might get a mil-lion dollars.” Anyone worried about a serious commitment can relax, they promise to

be a gathering of “primarily good fellowship but also edu-cational and entertaining . . . totally voluntary . . . no one is required to do anything!”

While many of the guys are retired, and a few hail from the “Greatest Generation,” they welcome men and women of all ages and would like to see the group add more members. They meet weekly, and feature a program that is planned by members on a rotating ba-sis, which typically includes a speaker on the agenda, with some months set aside for a “members’ forum.” The forum allows members to choose topics of interest that are open for discussion.

Bersch jokes that once the

“rules” are stripped away, “we don’t do anything, but we do it well!”

The Breakfast Club has also adopted a policy which they hope will keep the door open to any and all prospec-tive members—the Invocation will be handled on a rotating basis and it is open to anyone of any faith who wishes to of-fer it. Bersch says it is impor-tant to the group that people feel welcome and know that they will not experience any censorship.

While they have gone to great lengths to set up new guidelines, the BLBC is re-ally about fun and fellowship. They promise: “We don’t do projects! We don’t sell any-thing! … [and] we have such a good time everyone wants to come as often as possible so they don’t miss something!”

The Big Lick Breakfast Club meets every Tuesday at 9 a.m. at The Roanoker Restaurant (in one of the private rooms) and lasts for about an hour. Guests are always welcome. Email Bob Bersch at [email protected] with questions, or drop in any Tuesday.


The newly re-formed Big Lick Breakfast Club meets every Tuesday at The Roanoker.

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