Flashback: Tracking NRV history

Members of the Luther Memorial church in Blacksburg gather outside the newly completed building on Turner Street in Feb., 1938. It was the church’s 52nd anniversary.
| The Roanoke Times
file 1938

1988
(25 years ago)
-  “If you’re the top enchilada for one of Radford High’s basketball opponents, you probably don’t want any part of Ron Adams. Adams has made it a practice this year to be an absolute defensive pain in the posterior.”
-  “A conservation group has acquired 64 acres in Montgomery County to give scientists the opportunity to study the unusual desert-like land, a spokeswoman for the Nature Conservancy said yesterday.”
-  “Swimmers in Blacksburg and Montgomery County may be dreaming of an indoor pool, but folks have been splashing around indoors in Pulaski for more than 15 years.”
-  “Ballistics experts cannot link a 35-year-old slaying with a rusted pistol found near the scene of the crime, thus keeping Radford’s most notorious unsolved killing as much a mystery today as it was in 1952.”

1963
(50 years ago)
- “Ronnie Cromer of Christiansburg made like Superman last week and went ‘up, up and away.’ The 5-9 senior captain of the Blue Demons came up with a hot-handed 54-point production in two games…”
-  “Virginia Tech still covets membership in the Atlantic Coast Conference but cannot realistically expect an invitation to join ‘any time in the immediate future,’ Tech Athletic Director Frank Moseley said Monday.”
-  “The Giles County Board of Supervisors has decided to discontinue the paying of fox bounty as of 7 p.m. Saturday.”
-  “Wake Forest upset Virginia Tech’s previously unbeaten freshman team, 89-84, Thursday night in a game which saw four technical fouls called on Goblet coach Guy Strong.”
-  “Virginia Polytechnic Institute has received approval from the State Council of Higher Education to begin a doctor of philosophy degree program in mechanical engineering.”

1938
(75 years ago)
-  “Old buildings once used as laboratories by Dora furnace, long since scrapped, are being turned into class rooms for colored students of east Pulaski.”
-  “Mrs. R. H. Woolling, wife of a prominent physician [in Pulaski], today offered the rogue who took a $7 roaster and part of a turkey off her back porch the roaster lid if he would return and ask for it.”
-  “Stone surfacing has been given a three-quarter mile stretch of road on route 221 in Floyd…”
-  “Forestry officials announced here today a fire watch tower would be erected atop Peak Knob near here, to become the first structure of its kind in Pulaski county.”
-  “A carrier pigeon flew into the filling station at Pine Tavern this week… Mr. Howery, the proprietor, is holding the bird for a possible claimant.”
-  “Workmen are engaged in preparing the grounds on which the marble tournament, being sponsored by the local [Pearisburg] Lions club, will be held.”

1913
(100 years ago)
-  “Surveyors are at work on the double track for the Virginian Railway Company at this place [Whitethorne]. Operations will commence as soon as the survey is completed.”
-  “It was learned today that when the omnibus public buildings bill reaches the senate, a provision will be inserted for an appropriation of $75,000 for a federal building for the postoffice and a mine rescue station at Pulaski, Va.”
-  “In one of the prettiest games of the season on the home floor V. P. I. defeated Randolph-Macon College here today by a score of thirty-six to sixteen.”
-  “One of the most enjoyable social events of the season was a valentine party, given by Misses Maude and Eva Ryan, at ‘Ripplemeade,’ their home, near Shawsville.”
-  “All classes were suspended at the institute today in honor of the birthday of George Washington and only the necessary military routine has been carried out.”

-Compiled by Roanoke Times librarian Belinda Harris

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