News From Roanoke.com

The Roanoke art museum wasn't immune to the region's economic hardships but is looking forward to shaping its future with a new executive director.

The Taubman Museum of Art opened a year ago today amid visions of nearly 200,000 annual visitors walking through its front doors and igniting a major economic upswing in downtown Roanoke.

Its founders now say those consulting firm predictions were too sunny for what already would be a challenging year, as Roanoke's dramatically expanded art museum strove to reinvent itself with a new identity.

Truett Cathy will speak Tuesday at a Roanoke benefit banquet for Renewenation, a nonprofit focused on Christian education.

A Roanoke nonprofit that wants to provide tuition-free Christian education to children is banking on the founder of a well-known national fast food chain to help it raise funds.

Truett Cathy, the founder and chairman of Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A, will speak on Wednesday at a benefit banquet for Renewanation at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center.

Volunteers will continue a search of Charlottesville today.

CHARLOTTESVILLE The scene was idyllic -- green fields, white fences, sunshine, a breeze and such quiet that you could hear the hiss of shoes on dry grass.

A beautiful setting for what was a grim task: a search for anything to help tell the story of what happened to 20-year-old Morgan Harrington on the mid-October night the Roanoke County woman disappeared from outside a Metallica concert here.

A Virginia Military Institute freshman died Saturday after collapsing following a training event, according to a release from the school.

John Alexander Evans, a 19-year-old fourth-class cadet from Highland, Md., collapsed in his barracks room after completing a 10-mile road march with other members of the rat class.

H1N1 vaccines were available Saturday in Salem and will be offered today in Floyd.

An H1N1 flu shot clinic drew hundreds of people to a Salem medical office Saturday, with dozens of people lined up in the 36-degree morning chill when the clinic opened at 8.

Primary Care Associates announced the vaccination clinic earlier in the week. The private medical practice had received 1,000 doses of the H1N1 vaccine, which has been in short supply both locally and nationally because of production delays. The clinic distributed the vaccine for free but charged a $19.96 administrative fee per dose.

Valleys remember little about shooting suspect

Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

The volunteer effort to find a missing Virginia Tech student resumes this morning in Charlottesville.

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- A massive search by 360 volunteers Friday apparently turned up no new leads in the disappearance of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, but organizers said they will return to the job today and Sunday.

FORT HOOD, Texas -- Pfc. Marquest Smith, on his way to Afghanistan in January, was completing routine paperwork about a bee-sting allergy when the sounds erupted.

A musical performed by young thespians centers around adoption themes.

It's not central to the actor's craft to share traits with his character. After all, many of the great Shakespearean roles require killing another person.

But consider Anette Lloyd, the 26-year-old who plays the only adult in the local production of "They Chose Me!" a musical in which 10- to 19-year-olds represent adopted children telling their stories. Lloyd was adopted as a child, and she plays a central role in the play that opened Thursday at William Fleming High School.

Former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair answered tough questions Friday in Lexington.

LEXINGTON -- Burr Datz wanted to hear a full-blown confession.

Datz, a Washington and Lee University leadership development professor, sat in the last row of the college's Stackhouse Theater, waiting for Jayson Blair, disgraced former New York Times reporter and the night's featured speaker, to deliver.

The animal crashed through a storefront and then back out again before dodging traffic.
Video: Catching up with the deer

Video by Jordan Fifer | The Roanoke Times

Prosecutors reduced the charge against Marquise Daye to second-degree murder.

A Roanoke Circuit Court judge on Friday afternoon convicted a 17-year-old of killing another teenager.

Marquise Terrel Daye is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 3 for fatally shooting Gregory Grant, 15.

The suspect, a Virginia Tech graduate and one-time Vinton resident, was shot but survived at Fort Hood, Texas.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of shooting 12 people to death and wounding 31 others at Fort Hood, Texas, on Thursday, was the son of Roanoke merchants and restaurateurs, lived in Vinton and graduated from Virginia Tech.

Organizers say as many as 1,000 could turn out to search for the missing Virginia Tech student.
Related Web site

• View more details on the "community search party"

Map and timeline

Matt Chittum | The Roanoke Times

The traffic circle is the first in a series of similar projects for the city, county and Blacksburg.

After numerous construction delays, the Virginia Department of Transportation on Thursday afternoon opened a roundabout that will merge two streets in Southwest Roanoke County.

The addition of the county into the regional utility still requires the approval from the State Corporation Commission.

Franklin County was voted in as a full-fledged member Thursday of the Western Virginia Water Authority by the governing bodies that already made up the regional utility.

The Roanoke City Council, the boards of supervisors of Roanoke and Franklin counties and the water authority board unanimously approved Franklin County's membership. The membership will become official upon approval by the State Corporation Commission. It's unclear when the SCC will take up the issue.

The companies will report for federal duty Jan. 5 and will be sent to serve in Iraq.

Four hundred Virginia National Guard soldiers, including companies based in Bedford, Clifton Forge and Lexington, were called for active duty in Iraq on Thursday. Some New River Valley-based companies could also get the call.

Health officials are targeting efforts on the high-risk groups of kids and pregnant women.

The 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine continues to trickle into the region, and health department officials in the Roanoke and New River valleys are concentrating vaccination efforts on high-risk groups that include pregnant women and children between 6 months and 18 years old.

A traveling exhibit that stopped in Rocky Mount reflected on the many funeral traditions throughout history.

ROCKY MOUNT -- For some, a trip to a local funeral home Thursday wasn't to mark the death of a loved one, but to reflect on the history and tradition of funerals.

A tractor-trailer transporting "Reflections: The American Funeral" set up outside Flora Funeral Service for the day.

The suspect, a Virginia Tech graduate, was shot but survived at Fort Hood, Texas.

UPDATE (7:55 a.m.: Nov. 6, 2009): Death toll from Fort Hood shooting now at 13