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General News

Some 24-hour businesses in Roanoke partner with police for “proactive” crowd control after last call

ROANOKE, Va. – As young people spill from Roanoke’s crowded downtown bars at closing time, looking for someplace else to hang out, city police sometimes invoke an unusual alliance with a few all-night businesses that they say keeps partiers from becoming problems. Read more
This story came as a follow-up to a previous shootings at IHOP that inspired me to sign up for a police ride-along to learn more about this 24-hour hangout and violence hot spot.

Social Media scoured to find missing 12-year old girl

ROANOKE, Va. – From Tina Smith’s chilling Facebook post on the day she died to cryptic comments left on MySpace, the online profiles of Smith, her missing 12-year-old daughter and the man who police say abducted her are full of potential clues. Read more.

Roanoke Times reporter, Amanda Codispoti, and I worked together on this story. I focused on finding social media connections with family and friends of the victims and accused abductor. We were able to scoop other media by providing the final status updates before Tina Smith’s death.

Dozens gather to remember shootings at Backstreet Cafe

ROANOKE,  Va. – Whenever Dee Reese hears that front door swing open and the sound of the bells rattling against the back, she turns to examine whoever is walking into the Backstreet Cafe in downtown Roanoke.

It’s been that way since Sept. 22, 2000, when troubled drifter and Vietnam War veteran Ronald Gay vowed to “waste some faggots” and found his way into the Salem Avenue nightspot. He opened fire, killing Danny Lee Overstreet, 43, and wounding six others. Read more

Deer hits cost big bucks

ROANOKE, Va. – With deer mating season in full swing through December, sex-crazed deer leap across the highways — and anything else that comes between bucks and does — sparking an annual surge in deer-versus-car crashes. State Farm Insurance, the biggest U.S. auto insurer, estimates 2.3 million U.S. deer collisions in the past two years, up 21 percent from five years ago. Virginians hit about 52,000 deer last year, 7 percent more than the year before and a 28 percent increase over five years, State Farm said. Read more.
This story was picked up by the AP and ran in several regional newspapers.

‘Nappy Hair’ author Carolivia Herron speaks at Roanoke College

ROANOKE, Va. – When critically acclaimed New York Times best-selling English professor Carolivia Herron wrote the book “Nappy Hair,” she didn’t have a clue it would cause massive controversy. Read more

‘Growing Pains’ producer sentenced for child porn

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An executive producer for the 1980s sit-com “Growing Pains” was sentenced to more than seven years in prison Tuesday for distribution of child pornography. Read more.

McClaskil admonishes crowd at health care forum

HILLSBORO, Mo. (AP) — Sen. Claire McCaskill admonished the noisy crowd at a town hall meeting on health care reform Tuesday, saying the people shouting out comments and nearly drowning her out were being rude. Read more.

Pair of nuns help Mo. Police nab robbery suspects

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) – Thou shalt not steal_ especially within sight of a convent. Police in Independence, Mo., are crediting a pair of nuns with helping nab a gun-toting man suspected of burglarizing two homes Thursday.

Teenager killed in high-speed chase remembered as good student

ROANOKE, Va. – The teenager killed last week in a high-speed police chase in downtown Roanoke was driving a car his housemate had reported stolen, the housemate said Sunday.

I was able to scoop other media after learning a 19-year-old accused of stealing a car, running from the police which ended in a fatal crash, was driving his housemate’s car whom given him permission to drive his car often. We were able to talk to the young man’s family and learn more about the teen to create a richer follow-up story.

Features

Roanoke’s school integration: ‘I tried to look like everyone else’

ROANOKE, Va. – CECELIA LONG VIVIDLY REMEMBERS her first day of junior high school.

It was September 1960.

She wore black oxfords, a plaid skirt and a plaid top to match. Her bangs were primly rolled, her hair pressed in place with a white headband. She carried a small black purse and a brown paper lunch bag in one arm, school folders in the other.

“I tried to look like everyone else,” Long said. “But of course, I couldn’t, because I was different.” Read more.

The face of Yuma

MANHATTAN, Kan. – Rosa Hickman’s life has revolved around one street. Yuma street, known as “The Stem” in Manhattan during the segregation era, was the designated area for blacks for the 85-year old Hickman’s formative years. Read more

MLK childhood friend celebrates Obama’s inauguration

MANHATTAN, Kan. – He remembers fighting for the right to vote, he remembers sit-ins at Atlanta restaurants in protest of the South’s Jim Crow laws, and today he will witness something he never thought possible: the inauguration of America’s first black president. Read more

Business and pleasure: Urban Shine organizes day parties in Roanoke

ROANOKE, Va. – Put on your best dress and head downtown.

Have a couple of drinks, mingle with friends, network with fellow professionals, eat dinner and dance. You’ll be home in time to put the kids to bed.

And you might come back a little richer.

Read more.

Sports Features

Cave Spring middle schooler Chris Woodrum: Coming into his own at Special Olympics swimming nationals

ROANOKE, Va. – Chris Woodrum, born with Down syndrome, has spent his childhood in the shadow of two older brothers — one a Cave Spring High School football star, the other a Johns Hopkins University soccer player. Read more

Former K-State football player recalls road to integration

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) – When Ron Prince, K-State’s head football coach, searched for the words to describe Veryl Switzer, he found two: “a pioneer.” Switzer was the first black scholarship football player to graduate from K-State, and the Green Bay Packers selected him with the NFL’s fourth-draft pick in 1954. Read more

This story was picked up by AP and ran in several newspapers in the state for a series of stories on sports integration.

Twins use faith, basketball to start over

TOPEKA, Kan. – Twins say finding a church family has made the brothers’ move to Topeka easier. They relocated to Kansas just a month before Hurricane Rita destroyed their former neighborhood in Lake Charles, La. Read more

News Obits

Roanoke fire chief Slayton sacrificed for young firefighters

Roanoke’s longest-serving member of the city fire department died Saturday afternoon with the two loves of his life close by: family surrounding his bedside and firefighters in uniform standing guard outside his hospital room.

Read more.

Richard Poff was among early Republican leaders in Virginia

ROANOKE, Va. – Richard Poff, a former U.S. representative and state Supreme Court justice who once turned down a chance to sit on the nation’s highest court, died Tuesday, the governor’s office announced. He was 87.

Poff, for whom Roanoke’s federal office building is named, had a political career that kept him in the House of Representatives for 20 years. It began in 1952, when the Radford lawyer astonished Virginia politicians by winning the 6th District seat in Congress when he was in his late 20s. Read more.