Flashback: Tracking NRV history

1987
(25 years ago)
- “Author and Pulitzer prize-winning poet Maxine Kumin will visit Radford for the first time on Wednesday.” Her mother is a Radford native.
- “Just when Christiansburg needed it most, Chuck Courts put the special back into the Blue Demons’ special teams.”
- “Thanks to at least 70 Narrows citizens who donated their time, money and labor, the town again has a duck pond.”
- “Frankie Allen, who was Charlie Moir’s first basketball recruit at Roanoke College and spent the last 11 years as an assistant on Moir’s coaching staff at Virginia Tech, was named his mentor’s successor Saturday.”
- “On a chilly, overcast Saturday afternoon at Lane Stadium, Virgina Tech’s sinking football season was rescued by the Navy.” Tech defeated Navy 31-11.

1962
(50 years ago)
- “[Radford] City Council accepted a recommendation … from Mayor Sam C. Mattox that a civil defense organization be set up immediately.”
- “The smart ones may get smarter at Radford College because now they have a place to think. Honors house, a new program begun this year, provides a separate housing unit for 35 of the college’s dean’s list students.”
- “The Virginia Tech Gobblers have enjoyed big meals in each of four previous Harvest Bowl games. The main dish at three of the affairs was the juicy Cavalier of the University of Virginia.”
- “The undefeated Green Wave of Narrows rolled to its 28th consecutive win last night with a 39-6 romp over Galax.”

1937
(75 years ago)
- “The Gobblers of V. P. I. figure to lose their second straight game this Saturday when they journey over to Knoxville, Tennessee, where the good Major Robert Neyland directs his highly trained troops.”
- “The Blacksburg high school gridmen will pull the ‘Iron Man’ stunt this week-end, meeting two strong rivals in two days.”
- “The Giles county agricultural and educational exhibit opened here today with an attendance of approximately 3,000. A large proportion of the crowd was school children.”
- “Two large copper stills were captured near the Giles-Pulaski county line Wednesday night.”
- “The swish of downfield blockers getting in their deadly work; the sharp crack of ball carriers and tacklers meeting head on; the dull thud of line backers nailing the ball toters — these were sounds on the Virginia Tech practice field today.”

1912
(100 years ago)
- “The number of aspirants for places on the varsity team has steadily increased until the squad now numbers between sixty and seventy men, the largest football squad that Blacksburg has seen for many years.”
- “The Big Spring Hotel [in Elliston] was sold at auction on the 26th inst. to Mr. Wimmer, of Roanoke, for $2,150.00.”
- “Mr. Henry Minnich, the last survivor of both the Mexican and Civil wars in this community [Elliston], who is 88 years old, has been ill for quite awhile.”
- “One of the largest audiences that has gathered at a political meeting here [Pulaski] in recent years assembled at the court house last night to hear Miss Mary Johnston, the noted novelist, and Mrs. B.B. Valentine, president of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, discuss the question of votes for women.”
- “A great many fine cattle are being shipped to Northern markets, and large numbers are driven through town to the depot every day or two. Montgomery county is fast becoming noted for the fine cattle raised within her boundaries.”

-Compiled by Roanoke Times librarian Belinda Harris

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