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July 16 - July 22, 2010

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Four autonomous vehi-cles designed and built by a team of engineering stu-dents at Virginia Tech using the TORC Robotic Build-ing Blocks product line, are headed to Hawaii to par-ticipate in the 2010 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) war games.

Fourteen nations, 34 ships, five submarines, over 100 aircraft and 20,000 per-sonnel will participate in the biennial RIMPAC ex-ercise that will be ongoing through Aug. 1st.

The U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory worked closely with Vir-ginia Tech and TORC in the creation of the four Ground Unmanned Support Sur-rogates (GUSS) that will be used for their ability to sup-port a platoon of U.S. Ma-rines.

The unmanned vehicles can carry up to 1,800 pounds and can move at the speed of a troop on foot, or about five miles per hour. The vehicles are designed to re-

supply troops, to reduce the actual loads manually car-ried by Marines, and to pro-vide an immediate means for the evacuation of any ca-sualties in combat. A Marine unit will operate GUSS dur-ing the Naval Laboratory’s enhanced company opera-tions experimentation that coincides with RIMPAC.

Virginia Tech and TORC, a company founded by alumni of the university’s

The blazing hot weather all day didn’t seem to deter several thousand music lovers last Sun-day as they congregated at the former Victory Stadium site for the Down by the River Music Festival.

Six bands, most with local ties, and the headliner Derek Trucks-Susan Tedeschi Band provided close to ten hours of music, with acoustic musicians filling in at the Kids World tent between stage changes. There was a definite family atmo-sphere at the event, which was attended by people of all ages.

No, Ol’ Slowhand Eric Clap-ton didn’t show up, (a Twitter / Facebook stoked rumor that had people buzzing for hours), but Trucks, who played recently with Clapton, was more than impressive in his own right on lead guitar. His wife Susan Tede-schi hit all the right notes as the lead vo-calist - sounding a bit like Bonnie Raitt on the more bluesy numbers.

Before Trucks-Tedeschi hit the stage, Southern Culture on the Skids played a lively set, a homecoming of sorts for bassist Mary Huff and drummer David Hartman, both Roanoke na-tives. “I was born in the hospital right there,” said Huff, motion-

ing towards Carilion Roanoke Memorial off in the distance. At times Southern Culture sounded a bit like the B-52’s.

Lance Smith played guitar in the Kids World tent and then

came outside to en-joy the main stage music. The lead singer and princi-

pal songwriter for the group, Sinking Creek said it was “great what [promoter] Gary Jackson has done with the area, with the old Victory Stadium site.”

Smith was glad to see music back where the stadium once stood, a venue where he saw bands like Three Dog Night

and Blood, Sweat & Tears as a youngster. “Its just great. Maybe an amphitheater is not needed. Maybe we just do more stuff like this.”

He was also glad to see out of towners make their way to Roa-noke for Down By The River; some were following the blues-rockin’ Trucks-Tedeschi band on their tour noted Smith. “I know there’s people trying to make this the Music City in-stead of the Star City, and I like it.”

Misting tents, awnings and

Photo by Stuart Revercomb

Susan Tedeschi flashes a smile to a fellow band member as she takes the stage at the beginning of last Sunday’s concert.

Vintage Summer Days

Local antique collectors and produce vendors alike set up shop last Saturday at the Vinton Vin-tage Farmers Market. From hand carved folk art

to fresh green beans, there was something for everyone to enjoy. Some more interesting pieces were hand made cutting boards, hot wheels cars from the 1960s, and a va-riety of themed wooden men with hand painted logos,

representing the Hokies, Hoos or Tar Heels. At the end of the day, it was obvious that the essence of this market wasn’t so much about selling collections as it was sharing passions with curious strangers. Pictured above: Michael Denton, who owns Mountain Star Studio with his wife Judy, carves one of the many intricate wooden figurines they had on display.

Photo by Jessica Dodds

South Peak Development Nears Launch Date

Formal action on the forma-tion of the Community Devel-opment Authority (CDA) for South Peak is perking up with the help of Bonnie France of the McGuire Woods law firm in Richmond. France has been advising Roanoke County on bond issues for 25 years.

Developer James Smith will first start with a 120-unit condo-m i n i u m p r o j e c t fol lowed by a 90-unit Hilton Garden hotel, res-taurants, retail and office space. The bonds issued through the CDA will help with $11 mil-lion of infrastructure improve-ments.

County Attorney Paul Ma-honey informed the Board of Supervisors Tuesday that state code mandates three newspaper public notices before any action can be taken. Mahoney gave the board an opportunity to see the documents at Tuesday’s work session. The first notice goes out Friday, July 16.

Board member Mike Altizer asked for stronger language to protect the county from any monetary liability before the public hearing takes place. Al-tizer believed that the $30,000 yearly CDA operating expenses figure came up short. France ex-

[County Notes]

Tech Students Build Autonomous Vehicles to be Used by Marine Corps

[Entertainment]

> CONTINUEDP2: South Peak

Good Times Down By The River

The TORC based unmanned vehicle.

> CONTINUEDP6: Vehicles

> CONTINUEDP12: Down By The River

DirectorDowntown

P3– New DRI President Sean Luther comes in highly optimistic, finding his new position and community to be a very good fit.

JewellsCustom

P10– Jewells brings unique design, high technology and a personal touch to their family jewelry business in Roanoke.

SoulsLost

P11– The Jefferson Center hosts a variety of local art in the halls surrounding the Shaftman Performance hall.

Air?Conditioned

P7– Fred First makes a very good case to forego the A.C and let in the sweet VA mountain air.

Fred First

Page 2 | The Roanoke Star-Sentinel | 7/16/10 - 7/22/10 NewsRoanoke.com

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plained the figure was for budgeting pur-poses and would be low initially but high in the waning years.

The expenses, principle and interest on the bonds are to be paid with 70% of lo-cal taxes generated from the new develop-ment. “If that fails then there is a special assessment that will be added to the real estate taxes,” said Mahoney. If that fails to meet all of the costs then the applicant would make up any difference.

There was some uncertainty as to wheth-er a CDA would be liable for assessments similar to those assessed by homeowners associations. France said that she “had never seen that happen” but agreed with Altizer to add wording that would spell it out in the operating agreement.

Altizer did not want the CDA to be re-sponsible for any temporary infrastructure for the proposed condominiums. He didn’t want the CDA to turn around and “have to pay to do it all over again later.” Altizer also

wanted any rebates for water connections to be paid directly to the CDA.

The $300 monthly stipend to CDA members will only apply to citizen mem-bers and not apply to county staff or devel-oper members. France recommended that no employee of the developer be placed on the CDA saying that, “they would be sub-ject to a conflict of interest.” The board will hold a closed session at their July 27 meet-ing to begin identifying five individuals to serve on the governing board.

Altizer was adamant that no building permits are to be issued until the devel-opment agreement was approved and signed.

Board member Ed Elswick wanted as-surance of the success of the bond issu-ance. France said there were instances during the financial crisis where “bonds hit the market at the wrong time.” France said that in Roanoke County’s case incre-mental tax revenues rather than special as-

sessment would protect the county. “As the developer gets the project up and running it creates incremental tax revenue to pay debt service [on the bonds],” said France.

Altizer asked if any CDAs had failed re-sulting in only partial development. France said that Virginia has only a couple of CDAs that could be considered as failing. These failures were largely ”due to the de-veloper being unable to produce,” she said.

Mahoney who indicated that staff had been working on the board’s concerns for more than a year closed by saying, “if everyone’s comfortable we’ll launch this ship.”

Public hearings will be on August 10 and 24. Board members will get their final chance to question and modify the agree-ment at a work session on July 27.

> South Peak From page 1

By Valerie Garnerinfo@newsroanoke.com

It is back to the drawing board for the county’s web site redesign. Without hesita-tion the Board of Supervisors went thumbs down on the new logo and web design pre-sented by Teresa Hall, Director of Public Information and Bill Greeves, Director of Communications and Information Tech-nology.

A lengthy discussion on the county seal led board member Ed Elswick to say, “If its not going to change I don’t know why we’re discussing it.”

Greeves responded that they were try-ing to show “a consistent brand for the site.” The three logo options presented were not replacing the traditional county seal nor altering the seal for official county documents. Greeves added that the design needed to be “unique” and that the web site should “express where we want to go into the future.” It should have a “more contem-porary look” and be easy to integrate with new technology.

CivicPlus a government web design spe-cialist would design the web site at a cost of about $3000. The cost for the entire project is $70,000. According to Greeves the web site must be redesigned because the tech-nology is expiring and would no longer be supported.

Hall compared the design to Roanoke City that had a seal but also had a separate logo.

Chairman Joe “Butch” Church said he “didn’t think we have to reinvent the wheel … it’s not broken.”

County Administrator Clay Goodman remarked that “the search engine is a di-saster.” It sometimes takes 8 clicks or more to get to where you want to go on the web site.

Board member Charlotte Moore liked the current design that showed differ-ent venue pictures at the top but thought it could be lightened up. Board member Richard Flora agreed adding that the home page is too crowded.

Hall defended the new design saying the present web site is seven years old and difficult for the citizens to navigate. The design should be recognizable as coming from Roanoke County at first glance. “Part of creating a new web site is creating a new look to go with it,” said Hall.

Elswick didn’t like one picture of two people standing in front of a rock. He wanted to see some of the county's natu-ral features including open spaces, and the parkway. “(Pictures of) people are a dime a dozen,” said Elswick.

Hall defended “the people” saying, “they are citizens of the county … people like to see people.” Elswick replied, “I don’t care who those people are - I want to see the creeks and the rivers and the waterfalls and the mountains and the trees and the birds

and the bees” to chuckles from staff and board members.

Church then asked the team to go back and do something else with the design. Holding the three logo designs up, Church said, “these are out the window.”

No-Go On County’s New Logo

By Valerie Garnerinfo@newsroanoke.com

The three new logos that didn’t make it.

Roanoke County Law Enforcement received $217,141 to complete the firing range. The funds came from the police asset forfeiture account at no cost to tax payers. Jeff Altice in the Community De-velopment Department came up with a “bullet trap system” designed to neu-tralize firing range bullets so they can be taken to a landfill easily. It will save money on maintenance.

Captain Charles R. Hart, Deputy Sher-iff was recognized for his 34 years of ser-vice. Hart retired June 30. Hart said that he felt “rested already” and he had yet to see anything he didn’t like about retire-ment.

The Roanoke County Employee Hand-book was approved with the June 22 work session revisions required by legislation.

“It is an evolving document,” said Joseph Sgroi, Director of Human Resources.

Eldon James and Associates who lob-bies the General Assembly for Roanoke County was re-appointed as Special As-sistant for Legislative Relations at a cost of $24,000. County Attorney, Paul Ma-honey called him their “eyes and ears in Richmond.”

Three road projects will move forward – one on Tanglewood Drive and two on Plantation Road. The county received $82,502 of revenue sharing funds out of an expected $500,000 for road improve-ments.

Council member Ed Elswick asked that the subject of the proposed wind-mills on Bent Mountain be placed on the next work session agenda.

By Valerie Garnerinfo@newsroanoke.com

Roanoke County Supervisors Meeting - Extended Notes

Jeff Altice holding his “bullet trap” invention.

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Before coming to Roanoke to assume his duties as presi-dent and CEO of Downtown Roanoke, Inc. (DRI) last fall, Sean C. Luther had been in-volved with private real estate development. During this time he worked with the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, an or-ganization that is essentially the equivalent of Roanoke’s DRI.

As a member of the Inter-national Downtown Associa-tion (IDA), he learned about the opening for the head of the DRI. Bill Carder had left abruptly and had been replaced in the interim by Doug Waters.

“It was just a very good fit for my personal background as well as [for] DRI, and really what the organization is working on over the next couple years,” said Luther, who believes that his background in economic development will enable DRI to continue its management of Dickens of a Christmas and Movies in the Park, as well as the Farmer’s Market. All three fall under DRI’s traditional re-sponsibilities of marketing and events.

Luther, still in his late 20’s, also wants to, “kind of shift … into high gear on the econom-ic development component, working with the city, other local and regional partners on business recruitment and retention, making sure that we’ve identified retail vacan-cies. [That way] when we get prospects coming either to the city or to us, we know exactly where they would fit in and at what price ranges.”

He also wants to advocate for the continued transformation of under utilized structures into things like boutique office space, as well as apartments and condominiums, “really helping to push along the vibrancy of downtown Roanoke.”

Luther continued, adding that, “what we’re working with in Roanoke is a key core of lo-cally owned, locally supported businesses, growing downtown as a local alternative to the malls. There’s a growing move-ment in the U. S. away from the static, super clean, Disney World environment that a mall represents, and towards sup-porting what makes Roanoke unique instead of what makes it like every other city or town our size.”

Luther, who holds a Master’s degree in real estate develop-ment from Clemson Univer-sity, says that what personally attracted him to the Roanoke region is that “having grown up in Pittsburgh and having spent

a considerable amount of time in South Carolina, Western Virginia is very much kind of a combination of the two.”

Another factor in persuad-ing Luther to come to Roanoke is what he calls, “the vibrancy of downtown Roanoke. A lot of smaller Southern downtowns completely lost their center core as the malls became more prominent in the late ‘50s. Here, the city and private groups, have continuously stepped in and said, ‘We’re commit-ted to the market area. We’re committed to downtown as a whole.’ We saw that in the late 70’s with Design 79 and Center in the Square, and the Market Building renovation.”

“Those efforts,” said Luther, “laid the groundwork for the recent downtown resurgence. Having seen a lot of down-towns, I can understand very clearly that there’s a passion for downtown among Roanokers and the greater Western Vir-ginia region.”

Contrary to what people may have heard, Luther says that the outdoor farmer’s market and Market Street will not close while the Market Building is closed for renovation. The lat-ter will remain open until La-bor Day and is scheduled to reopen when the renovations are completed in July 2011. The general idea for the reno-vations “is to [renovate] some of the area on the Mezzanine. Most of what’s going to happen is infrastructure repairs” meant to improve on earlier renova-tions in the 60s and 80s.

Luther states that, “When the city takes the market build-ing off-line …they’re maintain-ing a very, very tight construc-tion footprint. We’re going to lose about 26 on-street parking spaces but you’ll still be able to drive down Wall Street [and] drive up that section of Mar-ket Street. You’ll still be able to parallel park on both those streets, and it’ll certainly not impact directly the operation of the outdoor farmer’s mar-ket or the ability of shoppers to reach our inline retail here on Market Street.”

Luther is also thinking about areas away from the market: “in the short term, I think the goal is to expand some of the positive energy that’s right here on Market Square and Market Street west towards Jefferson, with soft-goods retail so that we can begin to reestablish Jefferson Street as part of that retail corridor, which was its historic role.”

“DRI,” said Luther, “is very

much committed to making sure that the greater down-town area feels like downtown, that there’s an energy continu-ing west up Campbell towards Jefferson Center, the Cotton Mill [apartments], the condo-minium complexes along that route - making sure that that’s all connected and that Roanok-ers see it as a cohesive enter-tainment, business, and retail destination.”

As for new stores open-ing, Luther can’t cite anything specific. “We are constantly having inquiries from people looking to open stores. I think our attraction strategy is to look at the Charlottesvilles, the Ashevilles, the Greenvilles, the Raleighs, and say, ‘you’ve done well in this market and this market. Roanoke is very similar, and you can do well in downtown Roanoke as well.” Luther sees smaller, local “chainlets” like Mill Mountain Coffee & Tea being a better fit than larger nationwide chain stores.

Having been on the job in Roanoke for only a short period of time, Luther can’t speculate too much about his own future plans, but adds, “I really, really love Roanoke and this organization is fantastic. I think it’s a good fit . . . certainly in the near future, I see myself behind this desk.”

By Melvin E. Matthews, Jr.info@newsroanoke.com

DRI President Finds New Position to be “Good Fit”

Sean Luther

With 5 to 10 percent of all cancers considered hereditary, Lewis-Gale and the other three hospitals in the HCA Virginia Health System have decided to address that issue. Thus the new Department of Clinical Genetics made its debut re-cently, offering genetic coun-seling and testing for a variety of cancers, including breast, ovarian, pancreatic and mela-noma. In addition the Clinical Genetics department will soon offer counseling to expectant mothers on disorders such as sickle cell anemia, Down syn-drome and cystic fibrosis.

Kara Bui (Boo-ee) is the newly hired genetic counsel-or for HCA Virginia Health System, based at Lewis-Gale. She’s been a genetic counselor in the Roanoke Valley since 2004; the focus on counsel-ing about hereditary cancers is fairly new to the area. “But ge-netic tests for inherited cancer syndromes have been around for 15 years,” adds Bui.

As the Director of Clinical Genetics she will also do out-reach services, bringing ge-netic counseling to more rural areas of southwest Virginia. “Human genetics is a growing field and we plan to stay on the forefront of the latest develop-ments,” said Victor Giovanetti, president of HCA Southwest Virginia.

Bui’s department will con-centrate on genetic counseling for cancers at first said Bui, who just arrived at Lewis-Gale last week. “It will grow from there,” she promises. Much of what she does involves iden-tifying family members who might be at the greatest risk for hereditary cancers. She will also interface with Lewis-Gale physicians to make sure they are on top of the latest trends in genetic testing, a field that Bui said changes rapidly.

Bui said she spends much of her time going through a family’s history, looking for “patterns in the family tree,” to help identify what tests if any

might be prudent. Interpret-ing genetic test results is more fruitful when family history is taken into account, according to Bui, who earned a master’s degree in genetic counseling from the University of South Carolina.

“Once we figure that out we can offer genetic testing,” said Bui. She then helps clients make “informed decisions” about identifying cancer ear-lier, or preventing the disease altogether. Preventive surger-ies and certain medications can reduce the likelihood of cancer said Bui. Some are just candidates for increased screening frequency.

Genetic testing and coun-seling like the services now offered at Lewis-Gale is a growing practice around the country, according to Bui. “We are finally at the point in medicine where we can per-sonalize medical plans for pa-tients. Genetic testing data has accumulated [to provide for] a better outcome.”

Insurance companies “have gotten on board” also, pay-ing for testing said Bui, since preventive services up front are cheaper than the costs for treatment later on. Cancer testing tops the list of services insurers have approved for payment. Bui follows national guidelines to verify that pa-tients will qualify for insurance

coverage. “As long as patients really need the service.”

There is no one genetic test that can scan for all cancers and other diseases, but Bui feels it may be coming soon – a “whole body gene profile,” she calls it. “We’re close.” With the human genome already mapped “it’s getting cheaper and more acceptable,” to do genetic testing.

Genetic testing won’t detect everything but can go a long way towards keeping people healthier. “Its about preven-tion,” said Bui. (call 776-4963 for more information on ge-netic counseling at Lewis-Gale.)

Lewis-Gale Now Offering Genetic Testing and Counseling

Kara Bui

By Gene Marranogmarrano@cox.net

PersPectivePage 4 | The Roanoke Star-Sentinel | 7/16/10 - 7/22/10 NewsRoanoke.com

The Roanoke Star-Sentinel

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540-400-0990

If you live in the Raleigh Court you have doubtlessly noticed the pitter-patter of little feet on your hardwood floors this summer.

No, there has not been an unusually loud boom of babies in the vicinity; I speak of the scamper-ing legions of rodents that call my neighborhood home.

Hold your letters and email animal lovers; the simple truth is that I hate mice, rats and all like vermin. As a child I can remember overhearing a newscast reporting that smoking ciga-rettes caused cancer in rats. "Good, I thought," I hate rats", missing the mes-sage completely. I carry that dread to this day.

Several years ago, while working in our basement, I spied a happy little rat bouncing into our laundry room. Partially paralyzed with fear, I quietly climbed the stairs (trying not to alarm our then nine year old son) and whis-pered into my wife's ear that a furry intruder was bathing in our sump pump. Leaping at the opportunity to test our Coonhound's inherent hunting skills, Janet grabbed Tara by the collar and raced down to the cellar, while the "man" of the house hid up-stairs.

The sounds emanating from below decks were horrifying. A mixture of Janet's bloodthirsty sup-port for her partner and Tara's relentless unwill-ingness to share her home with yet another ani-mal brought a quick end to the proceedings. In the end, Tara and Janet returned from the hunt victorious and our basement resembled an Indian massacre. I learned a lot about Janet that day, re-sulting in more than a few sleepless nights.

Janet is one of those people with no fear. A not-ed high school gymnast, she will fling herself into the fray with little care for life and limb, and come out battered but sound as a pound. Among the rodent population she is public enemy number one. Repulsed by the carnage and inhumanity left by glue traps, Janet often opts for the Lucrezia Borgia method of extermination, employing a poisonous and more humane solution.

Our present dogs also pitch in when they can. Mya, who is often frightened by a strong wind, be-comes a pit bull when it comes to the challenge of the mouse hunt. Roscoe, the world's laziest Basset Hound is little to no help. Unless the mice stroll up to Roscoe and introduce themselves, there is little chance a trophy will be claimed. If he sees a mouse dart behind our stove, Roscoe will stake out the rodent for hours, eventually falling asleep while the unwanted guest enjoys a hefty buffet in

his half empty food bowl just three feet away. But on rare occasion Roscoe ac-tually captures his prey. During these golden moments he usually trots up to Janet with a small tail wiggling out of his mouth, and gently places his mousy cargo on the floor, allowing for a quick, albeit slobbery, rodent escape.

For those who find my murine dis-course heavy handed, try to picture these critters not as Mr. Jingles from "The Green Mile" or Stuart Little, rid-ing around your living room in his tiny red convertible, but as the creepy

little varmints who chew a hole in the bottom of the bag of YOUR Cheese Doodles, and snack their way to the top.

Neighbors, if you’re among the many who have dropped your hand into a bag of Doritos and battled a small, but savvy wild animal for suprem-acy of a chip, then you understand that of which I speak. I wish these creatures no harm and the best of success securing housing elsewhere, as the fact remains that between my son and his posse, there are enough livings things making off with my noshables as is. The problem is, that Will and posse won't eat the poison (so far) and they don't make glue traps large enough to snare eighteen year old humans.

If you are a mouse and reading this column, don't take offense. Please find shelter in another town (I hear Salem is quite nice) and by all mean smoke 'em if you got 'em!

Of Mice and . . . Rats

Jon Kaufman

Contact Jon atJon.Kaufman@sprint.com

Growing up in the Deep South meant dealing with the heat

in summer (well actually, from March through October in Ala-bama.) When we moved north to Virginia in 1974, I thought surely we had left 90-/90 temp-humidities behind. But it’s feeling a lot like ‘bama in the Commonwealth this summer, and this has led me to consider that, once upon a time, South-ern Americans employed eva-sive measures against the heat, and coped admirably with less grumbling and in greater rela-tive comfort than today—even in the years before conditioned air.

Back then, southern folk drank iced tea (pronounced as a single word, “ahstee”) often holding the sweaty drink to our jugulars or temples to cool our brains. We sat on the ubiq-uitous screened front porches along elm-shaded streets to enjoy the relative coolness of an evening. The motion of the glider, porch swing or rocking chair often created the only stir in the thick, watermelon-and-zoyzia grass-scented air. As a floor-dwelling toddler, I remember a single oscillat-ing fan, black, with whirling metal blades barely shielded by a sparse grillwork, it's animal-like and perpetual looking right-left-right motion a source of amazement and one of my first memories.

The vents in the dashboards of our cars worked only when the car was moving and those little side windows deflected tepid air onto our moist skin. Once, taking personal thermo-regulation into our own hands

on a vacation to Florida from Birmingham, we stopped at the Ice House in Woodlawn for a twenty-pound block of ice. It melted for hours right under the vent, cooling us as it puddled into a galvanized tub at my mother’s feet on the pas-senger side.

We had a roaring fan in the ceiling that, when you turned it on, sucked doors closed and lifted my hair and the shirt on my back gently towards the attic. My brother and I delighted in waatching balloons bump along the hardwood floors into the hallway and rise suddenly to be sucked tight against the louvers. We slept April til Octo-ber with the cooler night air filling the house the next morning, when the oscillator came on duty to push the coolness around dur-ing breakfast.

We were far more ther-mostatically-resilient in hot weather in those benighted days before humankind’s tech-nological dominion and cheap electricity collapsed our ther-mal tolerance to a mere few degrees hovering around the “ideal” 72 on which we now are habituated, 24/7.

Stan Cox, Senior Scien-tist with the Land Institute in Kansas, in his June 2010 book entitled Losing Our Cool: Un-comfortable Truths About Our Air-conditioned World, offers a host of facts to support the no-tion that we should rely less on the AC in coming decades. He

tells the reader some surprising ways indoor climate control has changed American culture, politics, and even frequency of sex, and suggests that we can adopt more adaptive, less con-sumptive ways of beating the heat.

In a half century, our rela-tionship to AC has come to resemble the dependencies of an addiction. Cox doesn’t ar-

gue that it’s immoral to be cool, but our shrinking comfort zone does have costs we should consider.

Today, 92% of new American homes are air-conditioned, and most of the electric-ity to produce our chilled air comes at the expense of Ap-palachian moun-taintop coal, hence the paradox: greater

indoor climate control contrib-utes to an outdoor climate out of control. Many of our politi-cians have the distorted notion that simply turning up the air-conditioning is the solution to global warming.

Our thermal tolerance has shrunk and adult and child alike have flocked to the Not-So-Great Indoors - and our health is suffering. Kids are little exposed to friendly soil bacteria and nematodes that apparently “train” the immune system, and “nature deficit dis-order” afflicts our denatured, thermally-sheltered young people. Even the obesity epi-demic is compounded by our sedentary encampment inside in our Goldilocks, “just right” thermal bubbles.

Living in a less refrigerated society in coming decades may be both desirable and neces-sary, but for now, air condi-tioning is the water we swim in. It’s all around us, and we rarely think about it. Maybe we should and I think I will—from the front porch swing, with a folded newspaper fan and a big sweaty glass of ahstee.

Air Conditioning Not All Its Cracked / Cranked Up To Be

Fred First

Contact Fred atfred1st@gmail.com

“It just happened.” You ever heard those words? You ever said those words? What about, “It was fate that brought us together.” Sometimes we hear or say these things to jus-tify some hurtful thing we did or to explain a decision about relationships or work or some other major life choice. “It just happened.” But what does it mean?

London pastor and preacher Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “Fate is this – Whatever is, must be. But there is a differ-ence between that and Provi-dence. Providence says, What-ever God ordains, must be; but the wisdom of God never or-dains anything without a pur-pose. Everything in this world is working for some great end. Fate does not say that….There is all the difference between fate and Providence that there is between a man with good eyes and a blind man.”

If you are not a follower of Christ, the only explanation for what happens in your life is fate. “Whatever is, must be” is your theme. According to this theme, life cannot have purpose or meaning beyond

the here and now. It is a theme that has little hope for the fu-ture or comfort amid difficul-ties. It is a theme that leaves one exposed to the trails of life with no reason or answer for them. It is a theme that is bone-chilling cold to the soul.

As one who believes the gos-pel, the idea of God providen-tially working out all things according to His purposes is one of the hardest doctrines for me to believe and yet, it shows up all over the pages of scripture. The Old Testament book of Esther teaches us that God is providentially at work in His world and in our lives. The reason this truth is so dif-ficult for me, and perhaps for you, is because much of the time, I can’t see God at work in my life. I think, if I can’t see God at work, He must be absent, but that is not the case. God’s seeming silence does not mean His is absent.

The Heidelberg Catechism’s, written over 300 years ago, an-swer to the question of what do we understand by God’s providence reads this way, “Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God

by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty – all things, in fact, come to us not by chance, but from his fatherly hand.”

So what? Why does this matter? When we begin to be-lieve this we are freed to rest in God’s Fatherly care of us. We can rest in (in lieu of becom-ing complacent in) the ordi-nary things of life. We can rest in the reality that everything comes from the hand of a lov-ing Father, who knows what we need, better than we do.

If God knows all things and is omnipotent then it is pos-sible that he knows something that we do not about what our soul needs most. If we will trust this fact, then the most difficult trials will begin to come into focus.

When I remember that the injustice of Christ’s trial - the guilty verdict made of an in-nocent Jesus, Christ’s separa-tion from the Father and the brutal death on the cross - all passed through God’s lov-ing fatherly hand, it gives me hope. Jesus death was not a mistake but a direct result of God’s loving hand at work, in order to reconcile sinful men and women to himself. As a result, those who believe and trust in Christ, experience the saving grace of God, restored relationship with the Father and rest in God’s providential work in our lives.

Because of Christ’s work, we are empowered to walk through our circumstances with the great knowledge and joy that God is working “all things together for the good of His people, according to His purposes.”

May we learn to live, and rest, more and more, in the tender hands of our Father. From one older brother to an-other…

Ed Dunnington is the Senior Pastor at Christ the King Pres-byterian in Roanoke. Visit their website at www.ctkroanoke.org.

Preacher’s CornerFrom the Older Brother’s Room by Ed Dunnington

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For some reason, I’ve al-ways loved vultures.

Broadly, their taxo-nomic group includes turkey vultures, black vultures, and relatives such as California and Andean condors. In prehistoric times, there was even a giant condor in North America with a powerful bill and a wingspan of 17 feet. That’s the length of a small-sized school bus!

All of them have a number of features in common: featherless heads and necks; long, broad wings; stiff tails; slightly hooked beaks; and clawed but weak feet. Many of them also have the unusual habit of def-ecating on their legs to cool them evapo-ratively, a behavior called urohidro-sis. Storks do this, too, a point used by some ornithologists to suggest a close evolutionary re-lationship between these two groups.

The scientific name of their family is Cathartidae, a term derived from cathartes, a Greek word that translates roughly as “I purify.” As scavengers, they gulp down carrion, fruit, eggs, and garbage like living, hissing vacuum cleaners for the natural world. The turkey vulture has a highly developed sense of smell for detecting ethyl mercaptan, a characteristic but repugnant gas produced by the rotting flesh of dead animals. Other species such as the black vulture have a weak sense of smell and so find their food by sight, but they’re often clued by the indicative behaviors of turkey vultures. Regardless, the bald heads of vultures are a twofold adapta-tion for thermoregulation and for feeding on dead stuff. As they stick their heads deep into decomposing carcasses, tissue and sinew will not get caught in feathers; and their naked skin

can later be disinfected by sun-light. Their ecological niche to purify the landscape is a bless-ing recognized by diverse cul-tures around the world, includ-ing ancient Egypt - the recent troubles of some farmers and residents in southwestern Vir-ginia notwithstanding.

Years ago, I led a backpacking expedition along the Potomac River from its source in West Virginia’s panhandle to a point

near its mouth into the Chesapeake Bay. While in the Wash-ington, DC area, our group camped by the river’s shore-line in Great Falls at the base of a well-known cliff. While exploring the nooks and crannies of the rocky face, Melissa, one of my more

precocious students, raised her-self over a ledge and stared di-rectly into the eyes of a turkey vulture chick. She then learned intimately about one of its most effective defensive behaviors: with breathtaking accuracy, the surprised little bird – looking for all the world like a young turkey – disgorged its stomach contents on the face and shoul-ders of my student, just missing her eyes and mouth. Can you imagine her bewilderment … and the stench?

Vulture stomach acid is ex-ceptionally corrosive to allow them to digest putrid carcasses that might be infected with

nasty strains of bacteria such as botulinum, cholera, and anthrax. This adaptation also enables them to use their mal-odorous vomit as defensive pro-jectiles when threatened. After regaining her bearings, Melissa became ecstatic about the en-counter and quickly labeled it a “bazooka barf.” “I could even make out the remains of a liver and something that looked like a lung,” she exclaimed to our group. Of course, we all went back to the spot of the attack and found reeking flesh all over the ledge. The bird had run off to a distant spot and watched us from afar. Later we departed with a renewed appreciation for all that vultures do for our planet.

The natural world is not al-ways about lovely landscapes, heart-warming wildlife drama, and bouquets of pretty wild-flowers. The natural world is a 3.5-million-year-old web of life on Earth that doesn’t give a hoot about our sensitivities and pre-dilections. Vultures are just one of the principal fibers of that complex web with all its glorious diversity: 30 million different kinds of living things of which we humans are “E Pluribus Unum,” one out of many. I pu-rify. That could be an aspiration for humankind as we attempt to countermand the far-reaching, relentless effects of our abuse of the planet’s resources.

“I Purify”

H. Bruce Rinker, PhD

H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D. Science Department Chairman

BRinker@NorthCross.org

From long ago . . .Among the more fas-

cinating dramas taking place within this home is the timid emergence of heterosexu-ality in sons Chester and Cailan. Such blossoming is a vital force palpitating with intrigues and a hundred temptations to disor-der the pre-adolescent mind.

First, eleven-year-old Chester. He is entering `rut', that strange inward hastening of change; and after years of anonymity, is be-wildered to find himself much sought after by the ladies. Not six months ago he would run in terror from the humblest petticoat… and he still does, sort of, but now he looks back a lot.

Considering what he's up against, he has probably cho-sen the smartest re-sponse. Running.

The women move smoothly through their paces, while the guys, if Chester is any model, staggers about as if blindfolded in a dark room. These are turbulent times for young Ches, as they would be for any of us forced to go back to those days. I'll pass.

He was invited to a pool party the other afternoon. He re-turned home saying that he had had a good time; a blue-lipped and shiverin'; a pruny fingers kind of good time. Four girls were there and one boy. Him. The girls, powdered and curled, had set this up; a `coincidence'. ["The other boys we invited couldn't make it."] A trap baited with perfume and bikinis.

"Where are the other guys?" he asked. All the girls began looking about as if expecting the missing males to suddenly materialize over the pool filter.

After much shrugging of

shoulders and mumblings of `Where, oh where could they be?' they turned on him in unison; they the cats; he, the Friskee's Buffet and said, “They couldn't make it.”

“Well, who did you invite?” “Oh.......everybody.” Me? I don't think so. I

think there was one invite ten-dered, one accepted. And why a pool party? `They wanted to see your chest?' I offered. He looked down at his chest. ̀ They wanted to see that?' Visions of being a stud danced before his

eyes. `Romance is not logical, Ches,' I explained.

There are three things incredible to me about Chester's love-life 1] Its sud-denness; he woke up one morning and found, much to his delighted consterna-

tion, that he was an item on the female dessert menu. [The

stress on his mother is consider-able.] 2] The number of women pursuing him with that calculat-ed indifference which marks the chase, 3] The very tactical na-ture of their pursuits; like a pack of remorseless gerbils calmly attacking a tangle of alfalfa. So Chester bounces around like a flustered shuttlecock trying to figure out what is going on.

Now, contrast that with Cai-lan's attitude towards the whole male-female thing. His level of enthusiasm, taken at peak, could only be labeled torporous. By all outward sign, he couldn't care less.

Cailan sits on the sofa, eat-ing a candy bar, engrossed in a cartoon. Chester says "I've got a girlfriend." Cailan answers with-out turning his head. Chomp, cherf, swallow, “Had one for four years m'self” Cherf. Stare

at the TV.[Pause Button again: Now,

you must realize that, beyond any social dispute, nothing be-tokens pre-teen suave more than having many girlfriends; either all at once or a series of monogamies. So Cailan, defy-ing convention by keeping the same woman for four years, shames his contemporaries with an unprecedented roman-tic fidelity, that and the fact his tale is, of course, a shameless fabrication. But at his age, and on this subject, there is no such thing as shame.]

Chester, so conscientious in his romance; Cailan, so cavalier in his; tries again. “I've kissed my girl friend.”' [“He's what!?” says Sabrina to me, overhear-ing this whispered confession. “My baby!!” She tries to run to him. A strong hand is called for here. I take her to the other room, force a Prozac between her clinched teeth and apply cold towels to her burning skin. This is a hard time for mothers; them being so emotional and all.] Cailan: chew, chew, “I've done that lot's of times.”

“He's what!? My baby!!” I cry out and start to rise. Sabrina shakes her head `No' and pulls me back. We share the cold tow-els.

So Chester, unable to fathom the intersecting vortices of love at age eleven, and completely unable to impress Cailan, age ten, and world-weary with the whole topic, retires to his room, draws the curtains and spends the rest of the afternoon writ-ing moody poetry in the fading light.

Alas, it would appear there are some tough years ahead . . .

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Lucky Garvin

Recalling the Early Years of Pre-Teen "Discovery"

Ralph Waldo Rose was a big man. Six foot five, 250 pounds. He

attended a big school, the Uni-versity of Michigan. In 1904, he was the Big Ten champion in both the shot put and discus. After gradu-ation, he went on to win seven Amateur Athletic Union titles in the shot put, dis-cus and javelin. He was the first man to ever launch a shot farther than 50 feet. His world record of 51 feet, set in 1909, lasted for 16 years. He competed in three Olympic Games, winning three golds, two silvers and one bronze.

His biggest moment came in 1908. That year's Olympics had been moved to London when Mt. Vesuvius erupted and destroyed plans to hold them in Italy. The English built a marvelous new stadium, the White City Stadium, in just 10 months. To celebrate the venue and give their games an extra

sparkle, the English introduced a new facet to the opening cere-mony of the games, "the parade of nations," wherein each team

would march in and present them-selves to their host, King Edward VII.

Each team en-tered the stadium led by one of their athletes bear-ing their national flag. As they ap-

proached the King, each flag-bearer dipped his

flag in deference. The Ameri-cans entered the stadium led by their big man. Rose, chosen to be the American flag bearer, was Irish-American, and was no fan of English royalty. As he approached the royal box, Rose - one of the most powerful, ath-letic men on the planet - made history by doing...nothing. He kept the Stars and Stripes com-pletely vertical, and just kept walking.

Controversy erupted im-mediately. The British press

lashed out at Rose. His team-mate Martin Sheridan - also an Irish-American - poured gas on the fire, saying, "This flag dips to no earthly king." The resulting games were highly emotional and allegedly tarnished when the Olympic judges, who were all British, consistently ruled in favor of their athletes. In the end, the Brits out-medaled the Yanks 146-47.

Rose died just 5 years later, of typhoid fever, at age 28. But history shows that, for his defiance, Rose won his big-gest achievement and one few athletes can claim: enshrine-ment in the official code of the United States. Since 1908, Title 4 of the United States Code on Flag Etiquette has read, "the American flag should never be dipped to any person or thing, unless it is the ensign respond-ing to a salute from a ship of a foreign nation."

A Big Man With a Big Love of Country

Mike Keeler

Contact Mike atinfo@theroanokestar.com

Page 6 | The Roanoke Star-Sentinel | 7/16/10 - 7/22/10 NewsRoanoke.com

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The peppers are ripe and some tomatoes are turning red!! You just can’t beat the taste of fresh vegetables es-pecially when you have had a hand in growing them. Sometimes we need to stop and remind ourselves just how great fresh REAL food really is . . . I say this because that is what crosses my mind every time I eat a vegetable, I think – WOW, this is really good, I need to always eat this instead of potato chips!

Of course goodness, in all cases (not just with food), is better than the opposite. But what is the opposite of good? I was watching a Harry Pot-ter movie the other day with

my kids and Dumbledore ad-vised the students about being brave when faced with mak-ing a choice between what is right and what is easy. I was expecting him to say what is right and what is wrong but he said easy. So much of how we live is not based on clear choices of good and bad or right and wrong but just what Dumbledore was talk-ing about - right or easy.

Easy does not seem as sin-ister as bad but easy is quite often a pathway to bad, it may take longer to get there . . . but it comes.

Fast food is easy, it won’t kill me today but it will hurt me one day if I make it a life-style. Growing a garden is not easy but is it good and right. I would much rather have my children learning to grow a garden than learning how to use the drive-thru.

We live in a society that promotes what is easy at ev-ery turn. We could all make an endless list of things cre-ated by man to make life eas-ier. Some are great of course, some ridiculous and some claim to offer freedom and yet they have left us in shack-les. We make our own choic-es, we have to stop blaming others, indeed, but we also have to start taking care of others and lead others away from easy and into what is right.

So grow a garden with your children next year and give

vegetables to your neighbors and friends. Share what you know and what you have. Make life right . . . not easy.

My friend shared some wonderful garden peppers with me so I made up this recipe to stuff my peppers with. The stuffing is not so healthy, HA HA, but the pep-pers are "right" and good!

4 bell peppers (or most any variety of medium to large peppers)4 cups of chicken broth12 oz package cream cheese1 cup shredded colby monterey jack cheese1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce1 tsp. Caribbean Jerk Sea-soning½ roll of country sausage

-Cook peppers for ten minutes in simmering chick-en broth, then remove and let cool

-Combine next four ingre-dients in food processor

-Cook sausage in skillet until brown and crumbly

-Drain sausage on paper towels

-Stir sausage into cheese mixture

-Cut stems off of peppers and remove seeds

-Stuff peppers with cheese sausage mixture and ENJOY!

Happy’s Stuffed PeppersThe Happy Chef by Leigh Sackett

The Roanoke County School Board has voted to proceed with a project to replace Cave Spring Middle School (CSMS). Originally, the project called for the renovation and expansion of the facility.

Based upon the evaluation of the current CSMS, Spectrum Design has analyzed the reno-vation of the existing school versus the demolition and construction of a completely new school on the existing site. Due to the major components needed for renovation, the deterioration of the current building, and favorable construction costs in today’s market, the school board decided in-stead to demolish the current building and con-struct a new facility. Construction is expected to begin in summer 2011.

“One of the major factors influencing this deci-

sion is the building lifespan of a renovated school compared to an entirely new school which will have a minimum of fifty years viability,” said Roa-noke County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Lorraine Lange.

“Building an entirely new school will better serve the Cave Spring community for the long term,” said Roanoke County School Board mem-ber Fuzzy Minnix (Cave Spring District). “With construction prices so competitive right now, we want to get as much as we can for our money,” Minnix added.

School personnel will meet with parents to gather input in establishing a transition plan for housing CSMS students while the new school is constructed.

The school board also appropriated additional funding for the architectural & engineering services for the construction of a new school; including design services such as LEED certification work, kitchen consultants, independent cost estimating, and geothermal test well analysis.

Cave Spring Middle School was constructed in 1956 and was the original building housing Cave Spring High School. The school became Cave Spring Ju-nior High School in 1968 when Cave Spring High School moved to its current facility on Chapar-ral Drive. During the 2009-10 school year, Cave Spring Middle School had approximately 600 students enrolled.

School Board Decides To Replace Cave Spring Middle School

The Treasurer’s Association of Virginia has awarded accreditation to the office of Treasurer of the city of Roanoke for the year commencing July 1, 2010 and ending June 30, 2011. Mayor David Bowers read the award of accreditation at last week’s city council meeting. City Treasurer, Evelyn Powers met all the requirements to be a Master Government Treasurer. To receive accreditation the office must meet high per-formance standards and have in place a policy that meets all government criteria. Emphasis is placed on exemplary customer service. Coun-cilman Court Rosen highlighted a time when Powers went to a resident’s home to collect cash they were uncomfortable in mailing.

By Valerie Garnerinfo@newsroanoke.com

City Treasurer’s Office Awarded Accreditation

> Vehicles From page 1

robotics program, share a successful track record on their collaborations. Togeth-er, they developed autono-mous vehicles for the Ur-ban Challenge competition sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2006 and in 2007.

“The focus of the collabo-rations is to leverage the research capabilities of the university with the com-mercialization capabilities of a small business,” said Al Wicks, professor of mechani-cal engineering (ME) at Vir-ginia Tech and faculty advisor to the team. They took home third place honors in 2007 when their vehicle completed DARPA’s 60-mile course in less than six hours, with no human intervention allowed past the starting line.

The four GUSS vehicles headed to Hawaii are an out-growth of the technology developed for these DARPA competitions, Wicks said.

The sensors have been great-ly improved, as well as the perception, planning, and control algorithms to navi-gate complex environments.

The Urban Challenge fea-tured a cooperative envi-ronment with well-defined roads for the competition. When the GUSS vehicles are used by the Marine Corps in Hawaii, they will be “off-road and not in a cooperative environment,” Wicks said. “This is a big step forward in autonomous vehicles.”

Michael Fleming, a Virgin-ia Tech ME graduate and the founder and chief executive officer of TORC, explained the team synergy, saying “I believe our team of govern-ment, academia, and indus-try all working together has provided the Marine Corps with a well-balanced solu-tion.”

The “WaySight,” developed by TORC, is the primary operator interface for con-trolling the GUSS vehicles.

Using the 1-pound hand-held unit, Marines are able to command the unmanned vehicles in several modes de-pending on the mission. The operator may use the Way-Sight to rapidly plan a new path, take remote control of the vehicle, or direct it to follow at a safe distance with the autonomous navigation system taking over.

The project is part of a five-year contract between the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division and Virginia Tech that is sup-porting a number of different projects.

The mechanical engineer-ing seniors who participated in the project and their home-towns are: Patrick Currier of Murfreesboro, Tenn. Phillip Tweedy of Lynchburg, James May of Atlanta, Ga, Jason Doyle of Blue Ridge and Ev-erett Braden of Roanoke.

sPorts 7/16/10 - 7/22/10 |The Roanoke Star-Sentinel |Page 7

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Tyler Fisher (Northside) was one of 5 outfielders pla-tooned on the West All-Star team.

Local Baseball Players Help West All-Stars Win Bronze in Commonwealth Games

Andy Richards (Hidden Valley) steps into the batters box.

William Byrd's Ray Har-ron puts down the tag at third base on a sliding North baserunner.

Photos by Bill Turner

The 2010 Coventry Com-monwealth Games are in full swing this weekend at venues all over the Roanoke Valley, including Opening Night ceremonies at the Roa-noke Civic Center on Friday night. Virginia’s official state games kicked off locally with the baseball competition last weekend, with a round robin tournament at Kiwanis Field in Salem.

Several local high school players competed for the West team, which won a bronze medal by defeating the Central team. Freshman, sophomores and juniors are split into four squads deter-mined by geographic area. Commonwealth Games baseball coordinator Wally Beagle said about 50 college and professional scouts at-tended the baseball compe-tition this year. That’s down from recent years where 60-65 scouts have attended, said Beagle.

“It’s average this year. It goes up and down year by year,” said Beagle of the talent level on display. The Games must compete with other baseball showcases up and down the east coast, which draw players away from the Commonwealth Games. “They can pick and choose where they want to go,” said Beagle.

“The number of showcases has grown in recent years,” Beagle noted. Neverthe-less scouts and coaches tell Beagle the Commonwealth Games are “one of the best [showcases] they go to.” Over 100 players drafted to the pros have appeared at the Commonwealth Games in the past; about a dozen have

made it to the majors.Hidden Valley’s, Andy

Richards pitched the first three innings last Sunday as the West team – which has only captured one gold medal in the 21 year history of the games – downed the Central team. Richards pitched two scoreless innings before giv-ing up a long home run in the bottom of the third inning. He surrendered a second run in that frame as well.

The first baseman/pitcher was the only one of three Ro-anoke Valley players to start in the bronze medal game. Richards, a junior, was first team all River Ridge district this past season for the Ti-tans, and honorable mention as a pitcher.

Other local players on the West roster included Tyler Fisher, an outfielder from Northside, who batted .373 this past season. Ray Harron, an infielder/pitcher for Wil-liam Byrd, pounded 4 home runs on his way to winning the Most Improved Player award for the Terriers.

Former Byrd coach Rod-ney Spradlin, who won a state championship with the

Terriers in 1997, returned to coach Commonwealth base-ball for a 19th year.

The West team had not won a game in the Common-wealth competition before it captured the bronze medal contest last Sunday. Beagle stated that the lack of gold medals for the West team largely stems from the small-er talent pool it draws from, compared to other regional squads based in Virginia’s larger population centers.

“You’ve got a lot of single A and double A schools in southwest Virginia,” said Beagle, “in Northern Vir-ginia / Richmond–Tidewater you’ve got more talent to pull from and bigger schools.”

Nevertheless the West team overcame that disad-vantage to capture the bronze medal on the Sunday before the “main games weekend,” for the Coventry Common-wealth Games.

Baseball Tourney Kicks Off Commonwealth Games

Wally Beagle is the long time baseball coordinator for the Commonwealth Games.

By Gene Marranogmarrano@cox.net

Cave Spring National 10/11 All-Stars Open District 12 Tournament Against Covington

CS National third baseman Evan Sperger throws to first.

Nationals slugger Jackson Odenweld-er hustles to first after con-necting.

National’s Dallas Killingsworth asks for time as he steps into the batters box.

CSN starting pitcher Mitch Custer “kicks and deals” against Covington.

Photos by Bill Turner

sPorts 7/16/10 - 7/22/10 |The Roanoke Star-Sentinel |Page 8

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Roanoke College Lacrosse Coach, Bill Pilat, was named VaSID College State Coach of the Year. In addition, seven players were named to the all-state team, including six who were on the first-team ballot. Stephen Simmons, Sam Love, Justin Tuma, Matt Quinton, Alex Burkhead and Jake Dorsey earned first-team recognition while Trey Keeley garnered second-team honors.

Pilat earns VaSID Coach of the Year honors for a fifth time in the last six years. He was named the ODAC Coach of the Year for the ninth time in his career earlier this season, more than any other ODAC coach. Earlier this season, the 1985 cum laude graduate of Roanoke became only the 13th coach in NCAA Div. III men’s lacrosse history to eclipse over 200 ca-reer wins.

Simmons, named USILA Div. III Long Pole Midfielder of the Year, was named First-Team All-State for a second-straight year in addition to his First-Team All-American honor. It was the second-straight year the team captain was named to the All-American team. A three-time All-ODAC and VaSID All-State selection, Simmons finished his career sixth on the all-time groundballs list with 284. He collected 85 ground-balls this spring with a goal and an assist in 21 games.

Love, the 2010 USILA’s Wil-liam C. Stiles Memorial Award for Outstanding Defensive Player in Div. III, was named VaSID First-Team All-State for the second-straight year. The USILA First-Team All-Ameri-

can started in all 21 games and collected 73 groundballs. A two-time All-ODAC selection, Love was named team captain this spring. The 2010 USILA North/South All-Star game participant finished his career with 241 groundballs. He was named the 2009-10 Roanoke College Male Athlete of the Year.

Tuma, a Second-Team USI-LA All-American, earned First-Team VaSID All-State honors for the second-straight year. He was tabbed All-ODAC for the second-straight season, earning first-team honors in 2010. On face-offs, he won 156-of-243 attempts for a .642 win percent-age. His 128 groundballs, along with his face-off win percentage and total wins led the ODAC this spring. A team captain this spring, Tuma was named Nike/Inside Lacrosse National Player of the Week earlier this month and is currently eighth all-time in career groundballs with 272. The two-time groundball award winner at Roanoke, Tuma to-

taled 30 goals and 19 assists. He was also named ODAC Player of the Week for the first time in his career on April 5.

Quinton, a two-time VaSID All-State selection, earned All-American honors for the first time in his career. The two-time All-ODAC selection finished the season ranked second in the ODAC in goals per game and led the team with 57. The 2008 VaSID State Rookie of the Year finished the season second on the team in scoring (69pts) while totaling 111 shots, 87 on goal for a .784 SOG percent-age. On March 8, Quinton was voted both ODAC Player of the Week and Nike/Inside La-crosse National Player of Week awards. He finished with 186 career points, ranked 13th on the all-time list at Roanoke. His 149 goals are third all-time be-hind March, and his 227 shots on goal are also third all-time. Quinton’s 22 man-up goals tie for fourth on the career list with Andy Bonasera ’03.

Burkhead, a first-time se-lection on the all-state squad, joined three of his teammates as a first-time USILA All-American this spring. He was a first-team All-ODAC selec-tion this season after mak-ing second-team in 2009. The three-year starter finished with 57 groundballs, three goals and one assist. He now has 120 ca-reer groundballs entering the 2011 season.

Dorsey, a two-time all-state selection, also earned a spot on the All-American team for the first time in his career. A team captain this season, he was an All-ODAC selection for the second-straight year, earning first-team honors. Dorsey fin-ished his 2010 campaign with 187 saves, an 8.11 goals against average and a .553 save per-centage. The four-year starting goalie ended his career with 657 saves, ranked third all-time and leaves the program as the winningest goalie with 53 ca-reer wins.

Keeley, a first-time selec-tion on both the VaSID All-State and USILA All-America teams for the first time. He was selected All-ODAC Second-Team following a solid season for the three-year letterman. A two-year starter, Keeley to-taled 23 goals and a team-best 30 assists for 53 points. He fin-ished fourth in the ODAC in assists per game. Keeley enters the 2011 season with 98 career points.

The Maroons finished 18-3 on the season, breaking their own school and ODAC record from a year ago. Roanoke cap-tured the ODAC champion-ship, finished with a No. 5 Na-tional ranking and advanced to the NCAA Quarterfinals for the 19th time in program-history.

Pilat Named State Coach of the Year for Fifth Time

The Salem Red Sox picked up their 50th win of the season on Monday night at Lewis-Gale Field, swiping a 4-1 victory in the opening contest of a dou-bleheader over Potomac to im-prove to 50-37 on the season.

The journey to those 50 wins has been unpredictable, turbu-lent, and memorable, much like the recent trip to Fenway Park. Perhaps the highlight of the 2010 regular season, the July 10 appearance in Boston was sup-posed to be a Salem showcase in the northeast, an opportunity for the Red Sox stars of the Roa-noke Valley to perform inside Boston’s baseball palace.

Following Friday’s game in Kinston, the traveling crew of players, coaches, and a few lucky front office staff took to the sky for a rare minor league baseball flight on Saturday morning.

Everyone arrived at Fenway ready to go, yet destiny was about to rear her ugly side as the afternoon progressed. A batch of epic, overwhelming, torren-tial downpours flooded Fenway and forced the cancellation of Salem’s game inside the great green cathedral.Disappoint-ment surrounded the team as

the squad made its way back to Virginia on Sunday.

Everybody still had fun; it was an experience in itself just to walk into the oldest ballpark in the majors and sniff the air, to view the Monster, to stroll the premises etc. - but unfortu-nately, the remarkable rain just wouldn't let up. Fenway officials were expecting a capacity crowd and the stands were gradually filling up during the first game of the twin-bill (which ended in a 7-2 Lowell loss in rain-short-ened six innings).

Thousands of eager fans graciously waited through the rain, hoping that Salem would get a chance to play and they might see some of the mythi-cal Red Sox prospects they had only heard about, but had never seen. When the final verdict was rendered around 4:15 that there would be no baseball, a palpable grown was emitted from every-body in the stands.

But at the same time, fans and players alike cherished the opportunity to simply meander around the baseball landmark that is Fenway Park. Although it hurt to journey so far and not get to take a swing at that dark,

green wall, the uniqueness of the little in-season vacation stood out. In the middle of a long, 140-game Carolina League slate, two A-ball clubs were plucked out of the mid-Atlantic region and placed inside a haven which they aspire to reach on a daily basis. Disappointing? Sure. But memorable? Absolutely.

The Salem Red Sox take on the Carolina League North Di-vision first half winner Winston-Salem Dash Wednesday, July 14 through Saturday, July 17. Friday night is “Christmas in July” with the Salvation Army presented by Dish Network. Bring a new toy for the Salvation Army Toy Drive and receive a free ticket to another Salem Red Sox game. Enjoy Post Game Fireworks Friday courtesy of WSLS-10. Saturday is Daisuke Matsuzaka Bobblehead giveaway to the first 1,000 fans.

Don’t forget about Baseball 101 for Woman and Girl Scout Night on July 31st.

Visit salemsox.com or call 389-3333 for more information!

Boston Trip Bittersweet for Red Sox

RVAA Swim Meet - The Elks Club Visits Forest Hills

Swimmers hit the water in the 50-meter butterfly.

Nathanael Valentine of For-est Hills leads the way in the boys' 25-meter but-terfly.

Ella Higgins of the Elks Club has the water fly-ing as she excels in her 25-meter event.

The Elks' Raine Taylor checks the lane after her call to the platform.

Bill Pilat

Photos by Bill Turner

By Evan Leplerinfo@newsroanoke.com

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NewsRoanoke.com 7/16/10 - 7/22/10 |The Roanoke Star-Sentinel |Page 9

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In my 20-plus years of business, I have never had an ad produce better results. In fact, I had to stop running the ad for several weeks just so I could catch up with the back log of calls that it produced. You guys have a winner and as a small business owner that needs to closely watch marketing dollars I am most appreciative.Sincerely,

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We are saddened at the passing of George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees.

While Mr. Steinbrenner will certainly be remembered for his almost four decade long ownership of the baseball marquee Yankees and their seven World Series rings, we will remem-ber him for his graciousness and generosity af-ter the tragedy of April 16, 2007.

He reached out to our community in its time of need and suffering. He donated $1 million to the nascent Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund a spontaneous fund of donations ultimately to-taling more than $10 million. He invited the

Virginia Tech Police and Rescue Squad de-partments and me to Yankee Stadium in May 2007 lifting the spirits of Virginia Tech Hokies around the world. And he sent THE New York Yankees to Blacksburg in March 2008 for an ex-hibition game against the Hokies.

While that match was no match, it exempli-fied Steinbrenner’s huge heart and passion for helping others ….and helping this community to heal.

- Charles W. Steger

Letter: Tech President Charles W. Steger on Passing of George Steinbrenner

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Dear Editor,

I would like to thank Valerie Garner for her fine coverage of our new council's first meeting.

Over the years some us have never let up on the issue of holding work sessions downstairs in what is a most inadequate room. We have long pushed for such sessions to be more up front, out in the open and held in council chambers. An even worse situation has been public briefings that are listed on the council agenda and then at the last minute moved into the conference room - out of sight and behind doors from the viewing public.

Mr. Bestpitch is to be commended for his effort on all fronts for more transparency. What was not reported, however, was Mr. Bestpitch's bringing up of my request to council to change the due date of property taxes. The public should be aware of this suggestion in case they desire to give council needed feed back or opinion on this matter.

As has been the practise, taxes were due this past June 1st but unfortunately, many elderly and retired who live and depend on their Social Secu-rity Check do not have these funds at the end of the month. Social Security checks are debited to ones checking account on the 3rd of the month. Those who are forced to wait and pay three or four days late are then hit with and additional late fee. My suggestion to council was, "why couldn't the due date fall on the 5th of the month? Would it really effect accounting that much? Why not write into law or code a five day grace period with no late fees involved. The matter was referred for review and I hope will come up for approval at a future meeting.

- E. Duane Howard, Roanoke

Letter: Bestpitch Was Pitching The Right Balls

The free flow of money is fundamental to our capitalist system and the entrepreneur-ial spirit that defines America. Investors vote with their wal-lets and the best ideas prevail. However, this only works when the government does not in-ject itself into otherwise private matters.

Abuses have occurred re-cently in our financial industry and they must be addressed. Unfortunately the legisla-tion which House Democrats pushed through last week will only perpetuate mistakes that have already been made. As America continues dealing with the sluggish economy and unemployment hovers around ten percent, the House passed, without my support, the so-called “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act”, which will expand government at the expense of families and small businesses.

Specifically the legislation allows a team of federal bu-reaucrats to decide if a private business poses a risk to the economy. The legislation would allow the federal government to take over those private busi-nesses and would even give the government the right to sell off the businesses' assets.

While the alleged purpose of this bill is to prevent a concen-tration of money and power in a small number of large corpora-tions, the bill would have the op-posite effect. Knowing that the federal government will swoop in and take over any companies that it deems "too big to fail," creditors and investors will be drawn to lend money to the largest corporations because of the implied guarantee that the federal government will step in to repay these loans. The natu-ral flow of capital will thus be interrupted and flow to the larg-

est corporations rather than to small businesses and entrepre-neurs with good ideas, which are the true innovators and job creators of the U.S. economy.

Additionally, the legislation expands the reach of govern-ment in the marketplace by cre-ating several new bureaucratic offices and agencies, including a Consumer Financial Protec-tion Bureau and an Office of Financial Research. These gov-ernment offices will have broad authority to impose burden-some regulations on any busi-ness that lends money, extends credit, or enters into repayment plans with consumers. These new federal regulations would hit everyone from doctors and hospitals to furniture and de-partment stores.

To address the need for re-form of the financial indus-try, I am a strong supporter of the Consumer Protection and Regulatory Enhancement Act. Rather than guarantee future government bailouts, this legis-lation would force companies to bear the responsibility of their bad decisions, rather than force taxpayers to pick up the tab. It would do this by creating a new chapter of the bankruptcy code

to make it more efficient and better suited for resolving these issues. This legislation would also ensure consistent enforce-ment, accountability and trans-parency by modernizing the current federal financial regula-tory agencies overseeing our na-tion's financial institutions.

Congress should not be pass-ing over-reaching legislation like the so-called “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protec-tion Act.” Instead government must make it possible for small businesses and entrepreneurs to access capital to innovate and create the jobs that are so des-perately needed today.

To contact me about this or any other matter, please visit my website at www.goodlatte.house.gov.

Congressman Bob Goodlatte

Commentary: We Shouldn’t Bank on Bailouts

Gentlemen:

My wife and I have a 2nd home at Smith Moun-tain Lake. We have enjoyed taking guests to the D-Day Memorial and recommending a visit to people we meet.

On our visit with guests on 6/23 I was disap-pointed and appalled to see that a bust of Stalin had been added to the memorial to honor him.

This was a dictator just as brutal or more so than Hitler. He was an ally in WWII only because Hitler had betrayed him, and otherwise would have been fighting us along with the Germans. During his reign, he killed or starved more than 40 million people. With FOR's help at Yalta, he and Communism enslaved over half of Europe for 45+ years after D-Day. These were the same people Hitler had enslaved and who the soldiers at Normandy were fighting to free.

I did not see any busts of Churchill, Roosevelt, or Truman, nor should there be. The memo-rial should be to honor the brave soldiers who planned, died, and' accomplished this MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, not politicians and dictators.

Since WWII we have let the politicians, bureau-crats, and news media versus professional soldiers

micro-manage our wars. Had they been manag-ing D-Day, we would have lost the war, and the generals who planned it would have been tried for war crimes. Our present political leader refused to visit the Normandy Memorial in France for fear he would offend the Germans. He refuses to use the word "Muslim Terrorist" who killed 3000+ US citizens on 9/11 and have killed 4000+ American soldiers since for fear it may offend Muslims. Why was the bust of Stalin added? Was it because his absence would offend Communism, or to provide money from a non-profit to a sculptor? We have had the Korean War, Vietnam War, 1st Gulf War with Iraq, 2nd war with Iraq, and are currently en-gaged in wars with Afghanistan and Islamic ter-rorism worldwide. It may be too early to tell, but the 2nd war with Iraq is the only one you could argue that we may have won, and I don't think the politicians or news media can claim much credit for that one.

I will not plan on visiting this otherwise great memorial, or recommending it until the bust of Stalin is removed, as it dishonors the brave sol-diers the memorial is supposed to honor.

Sincerely, Ed Preston

Open Letter to the National D-Day Memorial Foundation

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valley BusinessPage 10 | The Roanoke Star-Sentinel | 7/16/10 - 7/22/10 NewsRoanoke.com

There is one highly specialized laser welder in Roanoke that is not found in a machine shop or at a construction site, but is carefully ensconced in what might seem an unlikely location – Jewells Fine Jewelry on Franklin Road. It is an expensive and revolutionary piece of equipment that is rede-fining the art of jewelry repair. It is perhaps fitting that it resides at Jewells, as the store has a strong reputation of working to make their customers feel like royalty by providing outstanding mer-chandise and service. But what really makes the store an attraction, and causes customers to keep coming back, is the relationship they have with the store’s staff.

Owner Katharine Wells, who has lived in Roa-noke “forever,” has been in the jewelry business since she was 15 years old and started working for a local jeweler. She first handled small tasks such as replacing watch batteries and stringing gold beads, back when they were all the rage. She learned to size rings, solder chains, and eventually travelled to take GIA (Gemological Institute of America) classes until she was able to do all repair work – becoming a full-fledged bench jeweler. After marrying and having children, Wells spent many years doing jewelry repair work out of her home

Store Manager Marie Pugh, who has worked at Jewell’s for almost three years, is warm and wel-coming to everyone who comes in, whether they are there to look at merchandise or just to stop in to say hello. She is quick to give Wells the credit for the business’ ability to grow, especially during the last few years of a tough economy: “I think Katharine adds such a personal touch. She wants everyone to be perfectly happy and if they’re not, she’ll make them happy

When Wells was able to pursue her dream of starting a jewelry business, she originally opened a location on Brandon Avenue on a small budget but with a lot of determination, and the help of friends who helped decorate and furnish the shop. About a year later, while shopping for a safe, Wells found one for sale in the store’s current location. She asked the landlord to hold it as she needed to make arrangements with movers to relocate the safe to her shop. Jokingly, she told him that she could avoid all the hassle of moving the heavy safe and just “rent the space [which was open] instead.” He responded that since she owned the safe, he’d give her first dibs. Wells called her husband right away, who didn’t hesitate when he said “I’d rather move the store than the safe.” The end result was a decision to move which “was a fluke really.”

After moving to the current location in 2004, Wells was later able to double the square footage when a neighboring tenant moved out. The store was completely renovated and updated two years ago to its current fresh and open floor plan.

Wells isn’t exactly comfortable taking credit for her business’s success; she is adamant that it is a shared effort. She calls the store’s Jeweler, Paul Ware, “the star of the show. There is nothing he

can’t do.” They originally met through a mutual friend and she knew he was the right one for the store. She says that it was hard asking someone to join in a new business which wasn’t completely es-tablished, and she didn’t want to pressure him, but once he joined the business, neither has looked back.

They both share the same philosophy about running a business – they believe in total integrity and treating customers as they would want to be treated. He adds that it was Wells, and her per-sonality that won him over to join the business; “I knew she was going to be successful.”

Ware, who also waits on customers, says that is one of the unique things that Jewells offers. Ac-cording to Ware, “I can come out of the back, and talk about the repair; in many other stores, the jeweler is inaccessible – they are in the basement or a loft somewhere.” He points out that it makes the whole process a lot easier in the end

Ware is a big fan of the technology he works with. He says, “I can repair or weld a ring while holding the ring in my hands. The biggest ad-vantage is that I can do a job that even after 30 years of expertise I couldn’t do – mostly because of the heat a torch would use.” The state of the art laser welder means that they can also now repair costume jewelry, “your Grandma’s jewelry – even sterling silver with stones can be repaired.” They routinely fix several pairs of metal eyeglasses a week that previously had to be thrown out and replaced.

The family atmosphere at Jewells complements the professional service they are committed to… but it is the family emphasis that makes the place. Wells gets a bit emotional when relaying that she has been in the business long enough to be serv-ing the next generation -- daughters of some of her customers. Every now and then, a daughter has brought in a piece of her mother’s (now de-ceased) that Wells can remember making for that mom. That shared moment is what it’s all about.

Jewells is located at 3741 Franklin Road, SW. Hours are M-F 10-6; Sat. 10-4

Call 540-345-3564 or visit jewellsfinejewelry.com for more information.

Jewells Sells Jewelry, But Feels More Like Family

By Cheryl hodgesinfo@newsroanoke.com

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Tony Kelly, administrator of Friendship's Health and Rehab Center, promised to dye his hair pink if the Relay for Life team at Friendship Retire-ment Community met its fund-raising goal. The team exceeded the goal, raising $6,200 on top of a Friend-ship corporate gift of $2,500. Friendship held a breakfast celebration this week to thank all who participated in Relay for Life and watched Kelly's hair go pink!

Friendship Administrator Dyes Hair Pink

The Salem Fair closed down on Sunday night, but not before posting gains in attendance and revenue for the second straight year. Fair Manager, Carey Har-veycutter, says attendance for this year’s event was up 9 per-cent over 2009's figures as more than 300,000 folks toured the fair's 14-acre midway at some point during its 11-day run at the Taliaferro Complex.

“We’re very gratified that we had this increase in attendance, and I think a lot of that can be attributed to the fact that we didn’t raise any prices on the ride wristbands in an effort to keep things affordable.” says

Harveycutter.The opening night of the fair

was actually down slightly when compared to a year ago, but at-tendance picked up consider-ably leading into and during the Fourth of July weekend. Had it not been for record heat on sev-eral days and two nights of rain the gains in attendance would easily have been more than 15-20 percent.

“We think our very aggres-sive pricing on carnival rides played a big part in this spike,” says Harveycutter. “We also ex-tended ourselves a bit this year with advertising that attracted people from West Virginia,

North Carolina, Richmond and Charlottesville.”

Gross receipts for rides were also up almost 10 percent over 2009, as this year’s fairgoers willingly gave up more than $800,000 to enjoy the 42 differ-ent rides on the midway.

“I think when you offer a quality product like Deggeller Attractions does, the public will respond,” says Harveycutter. “People are looking for worth-while things to spend their money on close to home and the Salem Fair once again of-fered a lot of folks an entertain-ment outlet to do just that.”

Salem Fair Draws Record Crowds

Photo by Cheryl Hodges

Paul Ware and Katharine Wells.

The City of Roanoke will be a co-sponsor for the event "Taxes in Business Workshop: Learn the What, When and Why" on Wednesday, Aug. 4, from 7:30 to 10 a.m. at Virginia Western Community College. The site for this event will be Virginia Western's Natural Science Cen-ter, near the Community Arbo-retum greenhouse.

Presented by the Virginia Department of Business Assis-

tance (VDBA), this workshop is for both new and seasoned Roanoke business owners, and is designed to help participants understand local and state tax responsibilities. Presenters will outline various business tax re-quirements and their purpose, the impact of delinquent taxes on a business, and basic busi-ness principals to help manage a business more efficiently. Par-ticipants will also have a chance

to meet one-on-one with tax and business advisors.

The workshop is free, but ad-vance registration is required.

Please visit www.vastartup.org and click on Events. For more in-formation, contact Sandy Ratliff, VDBA Business Services Man-ager, at 276-676-3768 or sandy.ratliff@vdba.virginia.gov.

City to Co-Sponsor Tax Workshop for Business Owners

Twenty-five partners in a Vir-ginia Tech-led team will help make regional health care work-ers proficient in the new world of electronic medical records.

Under a $4.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, the team drawn from industry, academia, and gov-ernment will focus health infor-mation technology (IT) training in communities hard hit by job losses in Southwest Virginia.

"This grant is exciting for sev-eral reasons," said John Provo, interim director of Virginia Techs Office of Economic De-velopment.” First, this grant will train health care professionals and help advance the applica-tion of medical IT throughout the region. Second, the grant will provide employment op-portunities for displaced and underemployed workers and open the door to new career op-portunities"

Called HITE, for Health In-

formation Technology Educa-tion, the initiative will target health care workers in nursing, pharmacy, and medical-assis-tant fields.

The lead applicant on the grant is Virginia Highlands Community College in Abing-don. Other community college partners are Mountain Empire, Southwest Virginia, New River, and Virginia Western in Roa-noke. Faculty at the University of Virginia at Wise will support curricula development needs and provide program guidance.

"Key to the projects success is partnership with local health care providers sharing input with the curriculum develop-ment advisory committee," Provo said.

Industry partners include Hospital Corporation of Amer-ica (HCA) hospitals, Carilion Clinic and Buchanan General Hospital among several others.

Each hospital and health sys-

tem is in various stages of imple-menting an electronic medical records system, and many will benefit from having employees trained under the grant.

The regions three Workforce Investment Boards in Roanoke, Dublin, and Lebanon will pro-vide recruitment, assessment, job placement, and other ser-vices for the project.

Economic Development Team Lands $4.7 Million Grant

John Provo

arts & cultureNewsRoanoke.com 7/16/10 - 7/22/10 |The Roanoke Star-Sentinel |Page 11

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A new book out by a Rad-ford University professor and noted dog expert further delves into the social bond between humans and man’s best friend. “Dogs: Domestication and the Development of a Social Bond,” by Darcy Morey, traces the evo-lution of the dog from some 15,000 years ago to the present day.

“The dog/human relationship is … I think it’s a pretty amaz-ing thing,” according to Morey. “For people to relate to a non-human animal the way they re-late to dogs is, in an evolution-ary sense, an amazing thing.”

Morey says there’s a symbi-otic relationship in the social bond between the two species. “Dogs benefit in the terms of sheer numbers … People ben-efit in a variety of ways, whether it’s a positive impact on hunting strategies, their role in transpor-tation, that sort of thing.”

Why did the earliest humans domesticate dogs and not some other animal? “Domestic rela-tionships are not restricted to human beings. You can just as easily ask whether ants domes-ticated aphids or aphids domes-ticated ants.”

“Obviously there are any number of other animals that can be considered domesticates as far as people are concerned. But considering how any given domestic relationship was start-ed, you need to consider each animal separately. There’s not one size fits all.”

Morey describes himself as a “dog person,” although he grew up with a house cat. He says there’s definitely a difference between the way people interact with dogs and the way they in-teract with cats. “Dogs have a really distinctive relationship with people. Cats have their own kind of distinctive relation-ship with people, too, but it’s dif-ferent from dogs.”

“People relate to dogs very much like other people. I don’t think that’s the way they relate to cats. Cats tend to be solitary and they tend to be pretty noc-turnal, so they’re relatively self sufficient. Still, a good many people find them pretty pleasing to have around, and that’s espe-cially true if they’re individually affectionate, which they can be. But dogs have so many human-like qualities that it’s much like having a person there some-

times.”One chapter of the book is

devoted to dog burials. Morey says the earliest humans buried their dogs because they were treating them like people, an ex-tension of the family bond.

“They sometimes buried them with people. The point has been made in some of the origi-nal reports from a good many years ago, that dogs in certain areas were buried, curled up in kind of a sleeping position, and you can just see that from the photographs of them.” People thought the dogs would join them in the afterlife.

Morey is a member of the Radford University Forensic Science Institute research facul-ty. He published his first paper on dogs as a graduate student in 1986, and did his doctoral dis-sertation several years later on the evolution of the domestic dog. He is considered by many to be one of the world’s lead-ing experts on the evolution of dogs.

Radford Professor Delves Into His Favorite Subject: Dogs

By Beverly Amslerinfo@newsroanoke.com

The following Board appoint-ments have been made by the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra: Wendy Moore, former Vice President of the Board will now fills the position of President of the Board. Wendy brings her experience as a Fundraising Consultant as well as experience in profit management.

Joseph Ferguson, retiree of IBM, Inc. and former Secretary of the RSO Board is President Elect. Fulton Galer of McLeod and Co. in Roanoke will re-main on the Board of Directors as Treasurer. James McAden of Balzer and Associates begins his first term as Secretary.

The RSO has also announced new Board Members: Helen Dean, community volunteer and past recipient of the an-nual Golden Halo award of the Roanoke Valley; Robert J. Wer-ner, retired Dean of the Cincin-

nati Conservatory of Music and former member of the Board of Trustees for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; and the Reverend Barkley Thompson, Rector of St. John's Episcopal

Church in Roanoke. The RSO has also announced the ap-pointment of C.W. Markham to the staff in the position of De-velopment Director.

Roanoke Symphony Orchestra Announces New Officers and Directors

Jerry Castle will be at Kirk Avenue Music Hall on July 24th playing and promoting his new al-bum "Don’t Even Ask."

Castle claims to still believe that “songwriting, should be magical, not contrived" and according to recent reviews “Don’t Even Ask,” (his sopho-more release due July 27), is a perfect manifesta-tion of that theory: "A whole lot of rock ‘n’ roll wrapped in a whole lot of country."

“Don’t Even Ask” is born of a man in a whirl-wind of huge life changes: a new father, a corpo-rate career, a recent divorce, Castle found himself reaching out for something solid to hold on to as he returned to his life-long passion of song-writ-ing. The songs that began to pour out of him were layered with the same texture, grit and honest emotion as his life.

In the summer of 2009, at the suggestion of friends and music industry insiders who had heard a handful of the new songs that he had written, Castle headed into Curt Perkins’ Elec-tric Avenue Studio in East Nashville with Chad Brown (Jim Lauderdale, Ryan Adams, Bob Se-gar), Fred Eltringham (Wallflowers, Dixie Chicks, Ben Kweller) and James Haggerty (Josh Rouse, Joe Marcs Brother) with the intent to record some demos to shop. But during the recording, Jerry had a personal and creative epiphany and it was there in the studio that his new CD was born.

In January, Jerry returned to the studio with a star-studded line-up of Nashville A-listers includ-ing: Audley Freed (Black Crowes, Dixie Chicks, Peter Frampton), Doug Lancio (Patty Griffin, Steve Earle, John Hiatt), Brad Pemberton (Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Brendan Benson), The

McCrary Sisters (Bob Dylan, Buddy& Julie Miller, Jim Lauderdale), Jefferson Crow (Radney Foster, Gary Allan), Molly Thomas (Todd Snider) and Amanda Shires.

Don’t Even Ask is a reflection of a man begging questions in the middle of life’s ups and downs - pushing listeners inside themselves to ask their own questions. The album touches on some of life’s darker subjects: paranoia, addiction, fear, an-ger and pain are brilliantly balanced with personal triumph, love, confidence and joy. This is the re-cord of a man who went on a search for himself and somewhere along the way actually found him, and in the making of the album it would seem Castle learned a few lessons of his own: :"follow your gut... and don’t even ask."

For more information visit: jerrycastle.com

Nashville Artist Coming to Roanoke

Jerry Castle will perform Friday July 27th.

Those who don’t frequent the Jefferson Center and Shaftman Performance Hall may not realize that the hallways outside the concert venue and offices also double as an art gallery. Various art-ists and student groups have exhibited there over the past few years, and now a new show that runs through July 28 has made its debut. “LoLo Monae presents [the] Gang of Lost Souls,” opened with a reception last weekend.

A box of old stuffed toys inspired the name Gang of Lost Souls; last year a group of artists ex-hibited at the Jefferson Center under that name in conjunction with a play staged by the GAMUT troupe in the rehearsal hall behind the Shaft-man main stage. “Its kind of like Toy Story,” said Monae, referring to the misfit toys in that block-buster movie.

Monae (real name Lloyd Wiser) works behind the scenes at the Jefferson Center, operating equip-ment during performances. With the summer months almost completely dark at the entertain-ment complex, Monae, a hip hop/graffiti/tattoo fan and an artist himself who favors collages, fig-ured it was a good time to mount an exhibition.

In the past, groups like the League of Roanoke Artists and local high schools have exhibited in the Jefferson Center hallways. “A lot of kids are involved – and that’s what is really cool about Jef-ferson Center,” said Monae.

Monae invited several dozen of his creative friends and acquaintances, using Facebook as a platform to call for entries. “Lost Souls” works are for sale, contact Jefferson Center office personnel (suite 221) about a purchase.

There is no theme to the current Lost Souls

show said Monae, instead it is an exhibit that fea-tures “a variety of age groups and [artistic skill] levels. Its basically for anyone who appreciates art.” More than 50 artists and 160-plus pieces were on display opening night. A few well-known names like Ann Glover are taking part – as is Charles “Chicken Man” Cullen, the cable access TV ma-ven, and many lesser-known artists.

Normally the hallways “are empty” in July noted Monae; Jefferson Center management was recep-tive to his pitch for a show. There are other ben-efits as well: “this is my way to meet new people and hang out with my friends.” 100 or more of his friends showed up last Saturday for the opening reception, the biggest ever for Monae’s Gang of Lost Souls shows.

Lost Souls On Display At The Jefferson Center

By Gene Marranogmarrano@cox.net

Christopher Jone’s work, “Queen Anne Kudzu.”

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> Down By The River From page 1

Photos by Stuart Revercomb

cold beverages helped keep peo-ple somewhat cool until the sun went down, just as Trucks and Tedeschi took to the stage.

Net proceeds from Down By The River are earmarked for the Music Lab at the Jefferson Center, which is also supported by the Kirk Avenue Music Hall. That’s where promoter Gary Jackson does most of his work. Chris Stup, who oversees the Music Lab, said the amount do-nated “depends on the success of this show.”

The goal of the lab is “raising up young musicians here in Ro-anoke, equipping them with the skills necessary and furthering their development with what-ever they are choosing to pursue in terms of music,” added Stup.

Several adult learning cours-es, coordinated through Vir-

ginia Western, are also taught at the Music Lab which can be rented (after local high school and middle school students go home) for recording sessions. Stup was pleased to see so many people turn out for Down By The River, “I don’t think there’s a better use for this space right here. The energy has been great.”

There is more music to come at Elmwood Park this Saturday (July 17, beginning at noon) when the 5th annual Blue Ridge Blues and BBQ Festival takes place. Matt “Guitar” Murphy of the Blues Brothers will headline, with his group the Nouveaux Honkies. Labron Lazenby and L.A. 3 and Sean Chambers will also perform, with the three groups taking to the stage after 6pm.

The Blue Ridge Blues Society will also hold its annual contest for upcoming blues groups, with the winner representing the or-ganization at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis next year.

Festival founder, Kerry Hur-ley said, Guitar Murphy is also remembered “for all of the Chess Records that he was part of back in the day.” Lazenby’s band is “really incredible too.”

Hurley, also president of the Blue Ridge Blues Society, said he was “tickled to death,” about the growing popularity of the genre in Roanoke. “That’s part of our mission, to spread the word about how wonderful this music is.”

Hurley was selling tickets at a booth during Down By the Riv-er. Having more music festivals in the valley “helps all of us. The more stuff we can do like this …the powers that be will real-ize we need more of this stuff. It keeps people happy”

Tickets are $20 at the gate and $15 in advance (Jefferson Cen-ter, Fret Mill) for the Blue Ridge Blues and BBQ Festival; Henry’s Memphis Barbecue will supply the food.

By Gene Marranogmarrano@cox.net