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Looking back: May 20, 2013

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The Roanoke Times | File 1988


“In a Shallow Grave” premieres at Grandin Theatre.

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The Roanoke Times

Monday, May 20, 2013


1988 (25 years ago)

  • “The U. S. Education Department on Wednesday named Roanoke County’s Mountain View Elementary School as being among the top schools in the nation.”
  • “For all the titles his teams have won in track over the years, William Fleming’s Sherley Stuart had to wait until nine days before the end of his track coaching career to win an outdoor region crown. Fleming’s girls gave Stuart his first Group AAA Northwestern Region outdoor title Friday. ”
  • “The Virginia premiere of the movie ‘In a Shallow Grave,’ at the Grandin Theatre on Friday night looked like a scene from ‘A Star is Born’ on the outside and sounded like a class reunion inside.”
  • “Anybody willing to wager that it will not — repeat — will not rain on this year’s Festival in the Park? … It has rained on every one of the 18 previous festivals. ”
  • “It’s too soon to start packing your bags, but Amtrak is considering making Roanoke part of its New York-Chicago passenger train service.”

1963 (50 years ago)

  • “A special exhibition of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, commemorating the 500th anniversary of the artist’s birth, will open a three-week stay in Roanoke this Tuesday.”
  • “A chartering banquet for a new Roanoke Valley Sertoma Club will be held at Hotel Roanoke Saturday, May 25, at 6:30 p.m.”
  • "A new highway spur has provided the final blow in making Gilmer School obsolete.”
  • “Additional Western Virginia counties — including Roanoke — joined in seeking federal drought disaster aid Monday.”
  • “Negro plaintiffs in Roanoke claim the Roanoke School Board has delayed too long in the rate of school desegregation.”
  • “A Roanoke airplane carrying five Grand Piano and Furniture Co. employes crashed into a fog-shrouded North Carolina mountainside Tuesday, killing two and seriously injuring three others.”
  • “Breckinridge Junior High School made a shambles of the annual Roanoke Junior High School Track meet held Tuesday at Roanoke College.”
  • “Pickin’ and singin’ and slamming and banging. That’s what the Roanoke Raceway has lined up Friday night for its 120-lap racing program. The Stanley Brothers … and the Clinch Valley Gang have been obtained to keep the fans entertained.”
  • “A street car named ‘Navy Yard’ made final port in Roanoke’s Wasena Park Wednesday. … Another transportation souvenir will be placed in the park today: It is N&W passenger locomotive No. 611.”
  • “Several residents in the northwest section of Roanoke have reported seeing what one described as ‘a wolfman’ and it’s not even full moon.”
  • “Roanoke’s Negro cemetery, Lincoln Park, will be renamed the C. C. Williams Memorial park at a dedication ceremony May 30.”
  • “Rex Mitchell, director of parks and recreation, announced Thursday that rest room facilities at the Children’s Zoo on Mill Mountain will be desegregated when the zoo opens Memorial Day.”
  • “Roanoke City Council ordered City manager Arthur S. Owens to close the Washington park dump as of June 1.”

1938 (75 years ago)

  • “Sheik Raphael Emmanuel, a native Chaldean from the ancient city of Ur of the Chaldeas, the land whence Abraham journeyed to the promised land, will give a dramatic interpretation of costumes and habits of the people of Bible lands at Greene Memorial Methodist church.”
  • “A. Blair Antrim, formerly vice-president of Key-Antrim, Inc., has purchased the entire stock of that company and formed Antrim Motors, Inc.”
  • “Jefferson high school’s mightily improved baseball team chalked up its 12th straight victory yesterday afternoon, clouting William Fleming 12 to 1, at Maher Field.”
  • “Just what will happen when a Kentucky hillbilly egged on by a Texas cowhand meets an Oklahoma tornado remains to be seen at the Roanoke auditorium Tuesday night when Leo (Daniel Boone) Savage ‘scuffles’ Jim (Goon) Henry with Cowboy Luttrall as Leo’s manager.”
  • “The Roanoke Woman’s club will open its campaign for funds for the Free Cancer clinic.”
  • “The parade committee of Roanoke county’s 100th anniversary celebration … extended an invitation to all fraternal bodies, clubs, bands and drum corps in Roanoke and neighboring counties to take part in a parade on Tuesday, June 21.”
  • “The Roanoke Life Saving and First Aid Crew this week is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its founding.”

1913 (100 years ago)

  • “As a result of one [of] the most spectacular fires ever seen in Roanoke, the large exhibition building on the grounds of the Roanoke Fair Association … was totally destroyed at 3 o’clock Sunday morning.”
  • “All who are interested in the question of equal suffrage are invited to meet Mrs. H. B. Valentine in the parlor of Hotel Salem Tuesday afternoon at 3 o’clock.”
  • “The second contest was a regular lead pipe stunt for the scrappy Tigers who undismayed by their loss Monday came back ferociously at the climbing Truckers and made them bow down to humiliating defeat.”
  • “Tuesday’s storm performed many freakish stunts, details of which were not learned until yesterday, among the most interesting of which was the extermination of more than a hundred English sparrows in one tree.”
  • “A discouragingly small audience turned out last night at the Academy to enjoy the May Concert — an audience that Roanoke as a progressive city can not be proud of.”
  • "Hotel Kimball, West Salem avenue, opposite Academy of Music, has closed its doors, with the exception of pool room and barber shop on the ground floor.”
  • “Owing to the storm breaking down the wires in Midway, Vinton was in darkness from midnight on till morning.”
Monday, August 12, 2013

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