Joe Kennedy

Joe Kennedy is routinely named the region's best writer by readers of The Roanoker magazine.

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Angie Behan will talk your ear off.

Her topic in recent days has been fundraising for autism education and research.

Her nephew, Alec Behan, 7, has autism.

Alec lives in Ellicott City, Md.

His father, Brendon, grew up in Roanoke County, as did she.

Angie Behan wants to start a chapter of Autism Speaks, a national organization, in the Roanoke Valley.

She talked her way into getting permission to put a booth and spread information about the subject at the Bassmaster Elite Series Blue Ridge Brawl at Smith Mountain Lake.

She is taking donations, offering prizes and talking up a storm, without a doubt.

Angie Behan is a striped bass fisherperson.

Don't ask her about it.

She will talk your ear off.

This story won't die

Charlie Perkinson, locally noted for his jazz program on WVTF, the National Public Radio affiliate in Roanoke, caught an error in my June 4 story that was a follow-up to an earlier piece about the oversupply of unsolicited telephone books in this area.

In it I quoted Stephen Richards' e-mail to me, in which he said he began using alternative books after Verizon stopped separating the business and residential listings.

I said he started using the alternatives after Verizon started separating the two.

Perkinson sent a five-paragraph e-mail explaining that Verizon does not separate them.

Richards was correct. I was not.

"The year Verizon changed to combined listings," Perkinson wrote, "I was very upset."

Looking things up took longer. There were no alternative books.

With the listings still combined, he wrote, "I welcome the others with separate listings."

Not dead yet

Robin Reed, the chief meteorologist for WDBJ Channel 7, in Roanoke, wrote to say, "I would settle for phone book/books that have correct listings."

In one directory, the number listed as the Roanoke County Police Department's nonemergency number rings into the TV station's weather department.

"This has resulted in some interesting phone calls, especially on Friday and Saturday nights," Reed wrote.

Some people hang up when they hear "Weather department," but call back repeatedly, expecting a different result.

Some tell their tales with no apparent desire to reach the police.

"I hope some day we will get a breaking story," Reed wrote. "But I doubt it."