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The Virginia Tech Hahn Horticulture Garden’s spring plant sale runs Thursday through Saturday at the greenhouse/garden complex on Washington Street.

The sale is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The sale includes annuals, perennials, vegetable transplants, tropicals, trees, and shrubs — grown by Horticulture classes, the HHG, and some regional specialty nurseries.

All proceeds benefit student Hort Club projects and Hahn Horticulture Garden operations.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ended a 7-year legal dispute between the Bank of Floyd and its former chief financial officer by declining to hear the former executive’s appeal of his firing.

“It’s over,” said Bruce Shine, attorney for David Welch, who explained that the court ruled against his client April 20.

Welch is a former chief financial officer of Cardinal Bankshares Corp., which operates Bank of Floyd. He was dismissed in 2002. He had recently reported to bank officials and the state what he said were irregularities at the bank.

Welch initially won whistleblower-protection under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, designed to reform corporate financial reporting. In part, the act grants job protection to corporate employees who point out what they believe are accounting and other violations. The protection is available even if no violations are found as long as there was a reasonable basis for making the complaint.

Although Welch was at first victorious, the bank successfully appealed an order to reinstate Welch, which was overturned. Despite multiple appeals, he never regained whisteblower protection that would have entitled him to return to the Bank of Floyd.

“I think the result was the right one,” said Doug Densmore, the bank’s attorney.

Densmore said the bank said it fired Welch because he refused to cooperate with the bank’s investigation of his own complaint against the company, not because he had complained about how the bank was being run.

In 2007, Welch became a professor of accounting at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio, where he remains a faculty member. He could not be reached comment.

The United States is under distress. In order to save itself, the nation needs to realize the error of its ways and turn to God.

That’s the message Christiansburg Wesleyan Church hopes to impart to passersby by flying the American flag upside down.

“I turned it upside down, because that’s the state our country is in,” said Allen Goad, a member of the church.

Goad raised an upside flag during a church service earlier this month, hoping to make a statement that would grab people’s attention. He said a lot of people noticed, but only one spoke up about it.

Flying the U.S. flag upside down is an official signal of distress. This is what Goad, a veteran, hoped to convey with his message.

“All of our past days equal our present state,” Goad said.

He said the current crises the nation is facing are happening because the Christian church and citizens have “sat back and done nothing” for too long. Goad said the church needs to pray for the country and its leaders, while also taking a stand against ungodly things.

He cites prayer being taken out of school, abortion, homosexuality, among other things as reasons the United States has been “devalued, demoralized and in need of urgent repair.”
The pastor of the church, David Hurd, also feels that the country has lost the moral values that the country was founded on.

“I think that we have failed to allow God to be a part of our everyday lives as a country,” Hurd said.

He said while the church has love for everybody, it shouldn’t forget that the bible dictates a certain way one should live.

Goad said he hopes other churches take note of their gesture and do the same, or find their own way to make a difference. Since the church has already “sat back” and let the nation crumble, Goad said it is up to it to bring the nation back to more favorable times.
“Government has run the show and made all decisions, so that we’re becoming numb to reality, and the reality is that this country is going down,” Goad said.

--Lerone Graham

In January, Volvo Trucks North America in Pulaski County said it anticipated laying off up to 650 production workers in March or April, according to a Roanoke Times report.

Now the details are coming in. The company took action by dismissing 431 employees on April 9, Lester Hancock, president of United Auto Workers Local 2069, said this week.

Heavy duty truck manufacturing is in a downturn. Figures are found here.

White caterpillar nests cling to trees along Interstate 81 between the Roanoke and New  River valleys.

Based on a reporter’s description of the nests, Eric Day, who manages the insect identification lab at Virginia Tech, said he suspects the Eastern Tent Caterpillar is active.

Just as a stand of flowers or shrub may pop with a huge display some years, so, too, do insect species. Day said scientists expect to see an “outbreak” of the tent caterpillar once every 11 years; the outbreak may span several counties.

There are no reported outbreaks in Virginia. But it’s possible for an area as small as a couple miles of roadside to experience a caterpillar population boom that falls short of a reportable outbreak. That may be what’s happening along the interstate, he said

Motorists can easily spot the white patches amid the green canopy. But even where the worms are thriving, not every tree is involved. The tent caterpillar favors black cherry, chokecherry and apple, and also feeds on hawthorn, pear, plum and flowering fruits.

What’s at risk? The worms eat leaves by day and return to their web-like shelters at night, causing defoliation. However, new leaves will grow back. By June, you’ll hardly notice where the insects feasted, according to Day said, who said often no control is needed.

Horse owners may want to take notice. Day is aware of a past association between foal deaths and large populations of the caterpillars. He advised reading this 2007 cooperative extension piece that explains why “controlling Eastern Tent Caterpillars is vital to area horse farms.”

-Jeff Sturgeon

The March of Dimes' annual March for Babies, formerly WalkAmerica, was held Saturday at Christiansburg High School. Mike Abbott of Christiansburg shared the photo of his wife, Heather, and one of their two sons, Cole (foreground).

The paparazzi folks from The Roanoke Times came over to Blacksburg on Saturday for the Virginia Tech spring game. Tuesday Moriarity took a number of photos of fans preparing to enjoy the game. Shown in the photo are Inga Bermann and Holly Johnson of Blacksburg. See the whole slideshow on our flickr page.

We're planning to put some of the photos in the Wednesday Current section. Keep an eye out for our paparazzi at events elsewhere in the New River Valley

Montgomery County deputies are trying to find the owner of a 1966 Liberty High School class ring after it was found in the possession of a man charged in a burglary.

Deputies responded to a home on New Ridge Road in the eastern part of the county about 11 a.m. Friday, Lt. Brian Wright said, after getting a call about a breaking-and-entering. The owner of the residence arrived home to find a suspicious vehicle in the driveway, Wright said.

Several items were missing from the home, Wright said. Michael Shannon Moore, 33, of Vinton was taken into custody and charged with breaking and entering, grand larceny, possession of burglary tools and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He is being held in the Montgomery County Jail.

The items taken from the home and burglary tools were found by a police dog in the woods around the home, Wright said.

The class ring in Moore's possession is engraved with the name Andrew, Wright said.

Anyone with any information regarding the ring is asked to call the sheriff's office at 382-2951.

-- Shawna Morrison

Virginia Tech announced in a release this morning a public forum on race and education that is scheduled for Wednesday night. Here is the full release:

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 27, 2009 - A public forum focusing on race and education in America will be held at The Lyric Theatre on Wednesday, April 29, at 4 p.m.
The legacies of segregation and integration in Virginia public education will be addressed as well as the ways Americans think about race and education today. Speakers include Peter Wallenstein, professor of history, Virginia Tech; Patrice Grimes, Curry School of Education, University of Virginia; and Elaine Carter, Christiansburg Institute. Kevin McDonald, vice president for the Office of Equity and Inclusion, Virginia Tech, will serve as moderator.
This public event will be preceded by a free workshop for teachers at Blacksburg Middle School from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. Workshop sessions include:

• Race in Southwest Virginia: Demographic Patterns of Change given by Daniel Thorp, chair of the Department of History at Virginia Tech;
• Law, Race, and Segregation in Virginia Schools, given by Peter Wallenstein, professor of history at Virginia Tech;
• African American Schools in Southwest Virginia, given by Tom Ewing, associate professor of history at Virginia Tech; and
• Strategies for Teaching about Race, given by David Hicks, School of Education at Virginia Tech, and Patrice Grimes, Curry School of Education at University of Virginia.

Workshop participants will receive instructional materials and lunch. No registration fee required. To register for the workshop, please contact Tom Ewing <mailto:etewing@vt.edu>  (mailto:etewing@vt.edu)

Sponsoring organizations: Virginia Tech's College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Department of History, Office of Equity and Inclusion; and the Montgomery County Public Schools "Teaching American History" Grant.

Mandy Harris, a program assistant for the RSVP of Montgomery County and Radford, sent an announcement this morning reminding seniors throughout the New River Valley of an event coming up Friday.

Here is the announcement (the full pdf is here: senior-law-day):

In recognition of Older American’s Month, Elder Abuse Prevention Month, and National Law Day, Southwest Virginia Legal Aid Society and New River Valley Agency on Aging will be sponsoring - “New River Valley Senior Law Day” on Friday, May 1, 2009 from 9:00 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. at the Christiansburg Recreation Center located at 1600 North Franklin Street in Christiansburg.  For more information contact Sharon Sowers at 382-6157, ext. 226 or Elyse Politi at 980-7720.