Cornershot

To submit a CornerShot

The Roanoke Times welcomes CornerShot submissions from its readers. Here are the guidelines:

Length: about 200 words
Topic: CornerShots can run the gamut, but we generally prefer unique and clever observations on the human experience.
No poetry, please.
Email your submission to extra@roanoke.com with your full name and hometown and “CornerShot” in the subject line. You can also mail submissions to Kathy Lu, CornerShot, The Roanoke Times, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, VA 24010.
Submissions are subject to editing.

1. 41-vehicle wreck ties up traffic Sunday on I-81 in Rockbridge County

2. Virginia Tech football roster has holes on picture day

3. Medicare penalties hit hospitals in Roanoke, New River Valleys

4. Microfestivus beer event gets downtown Roanoke hopping

5. McFarling: 2 little numbers are a big hurdle for Virginia Tech football

6. DAN CASEY: Copter cost still stirring up dust

7. Arrest made in case of missing Nelson County teen

8. Roanoke farmers markets making local foods more accessible

9. Virginia attorney general's office grows under Ken Cuccinelli

10. Man's drowning is 5th in Lynchburg area

Mike Allen | 981-3236

Saturday, August 10, 2013

The Radford University Art Museum hopes voters will see fit to restore the late Dorothy Gillespie’s “Sky Castles” sculpture to its full brightness.

Gillespie grew up in Roanoke and had a lengthy career that saw her colorful metal sculptures adorn the Rockfeller Center in New York and the Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla. She died in 2012 at age 92. Her works in Southwest Virginia include sculptures in Jefferson Center and Center in the Square in Roanoke, and about 70 pieces in the Radford University Art Museum’s permanent collection.

But the four aluminum towers that comprise “Sky Castles” have faded a bit since their installation in 1999. Museum Director Steve Arbury nominated the sculpture to be considered for the 2013 Virginia’s Top 10 Endangered Artifacts list — a program run by the Virginia Association of Museums that helps call attention to artifacts in need of TLC.

Other Roanoke-area institutions also have objects in the running.

The National D-Day Memorial in Bedford has nominated a flag carried onto Utah Beach on D-Day by the 299th Combat Engineer Battalion. The Salem Museum and Historical Society has nominated a ship’s flag that belonged to a U.S. Army troop transport used to bring soldiers to Omaha Beach on June 7, 1944, the day after D-Day.

There are also nominations from the Historical Society of Western Virginia and the Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center in Christiansburg.

Vote for your favorite by Aug. 29. To see all the candidates and vote, visit www.vatop10artifacts.org.

Monday, August 12, 2013