Published: December 30, 2008 07:15 pm      

Other stories also had great impact on local residents

Other major headlines of 2008 included:

• Graham High School graduate Ahmad Bradshaw impressed area residents with his first appearance in the Super Bowl. Bradshaw, 22, is currently a running back with the NFL’s New York Giants. Bradshaw later returned to his hometown of Bluefield, Va., where he signed autographs and posed for pictures with his fans. In June, Bradshaw was sentenced to a 30-day jail term on a probation violation charge in Tazewell County. Bradshaw was the leading rusher for the New York Giants during their Super Bowl XLII victory, and played a key role in their 17-14 victory over the New England Patriots on Feb. 3.

• The trial of a Mercer County man charged with the 2007 murder of his 5-year-old daughter was moved in February to Kanawha County due to extensive pre-trial publicity.



• Arrest warrants for first-degree murder were issued in February for two men in connection with the Pucker’s nightclub homicide in January. One suspect turned himself in shortly after the warrants were issued, while the second suspect was apprehended in late February in California.



• Proposed legislation was introduced in February that would require a full-time pharmacist to be employed to dispense medication at free health clinics. The health clinic in Mercer County said such a requirement would cost them more than a hundred thousand dollars each year.



• A proposal by a veteran stage and film actor to help a group of Bluefield volunteers launch a four-year endeavor of theater and educational offerings was launched in 2008.



• Construction continued in 2008 on a $232 million federal prison project for McDowell County. U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., toured the site in late March to view progress, including the erection of walls and prison cells. When completed, the prison will include 1,280 beds for inmates, including 1,152 at the medium-security facility and 128 at an adjacent work camp. The prison is expected to pump up to $35 million in new revenue annually into the economy of McDowell and Wyoming counties.



• Bluefield officially confirmed plans in mid-March for a controversial relocation of the Social Security offices in Bluefield from an existing shopping center site to downtown Bluefield. In July, the General Services Administration rejected the request by the Bluefield City Board of Directors to move the Social Security offices. City officials had hoped the proposed relocation would bring new foot traffic back to downtown Bluefield.



• Former Wyoming County Council on Aging Director Robert “E. “Bob” Graham became a free man in late March after the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Fourth Circuit reversed his earlier conviction on one count of a 39-count superseding indictment returned against him on July 18, 2006.



• Area lawmakers reached a compromise agreement in early March that would provide funding to both Mercer County’s equestrian park project and the Hatfield-McCoy Recreation Trails without requiring an increase in tolls along the West Virginia Turnpike.



• Controversy at the Mercer County Commission on Aging offices in Princeton prompted state intervention. Commissioner Sandra K. Vanin said her bureau had received notification that the Commission on Aging had accepted a proposed reorganization of its administration. The action was prompted in part by multiple letters, e-mails and phone calls from concerned seniors and their family members, and an exodus of the Commission on Aging’s key staff, state officials said.



• A unique baseball exhibition game in March featured the New York Yankees in Blacksburg to honor Virginia Tech after the spring 2007 shooting tragedy on campus.



• Dr. Gregory F. Aloia, of Florida Atlantic University, was named the new president of Concord University in March. A farewell dinner honoring long-time Concord University President Dr. Jerry Beasley was held in May.



• Coeburn, Va., resident Holly Kiser was the winner in March of the Bravo TV reality show, “Make Me a Supermodel.” Daily Telegraph Managing Editor Samantha Perry covered Kiser’s appearance on the show from the beginning, and had an exclusive interview with Kiser after her win on the show.



• January marked the passing of several well-known people across the region, including Bluefield gridiron great Robert “Pooh-Eye” Smith, Princeton minister Harry Christie and beloved local celebrity Ray Brooks, who starred as “Snoop” on the “Snoop and Scoop” show that aired for 19 years on local television during the 1960s and ‘70s. In March, the region mourned the passing of well-known Bluefield philanthropist June Shott.



• A rally was held in March by Concord University students protesting a steep tuition increase.



• The city of Bluefield implemented a strict dog ordinance in March, which imposes tough new rules and regulations, particularly on specific breeds such as pit bulls and wolf hybrids. Vicious cats were also included in the ordinance.



• The discovery of flavored methamphetamine in Southwest Virginia in March prompted a warning from law enforcement officials. The addition of flavors - such as strawberry and coconut - to meth and cocaine is becoming a growing trend nationwide, officials warned.



• Area residents supported several “green” initiatives in March in honor of Earth Day.



• Officials announced the award in March of $311,000 in federal funds to the Mercer County Airport.



• Area residents, and the nation, paused in April to observe the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre. The region also remembered the life and death of Jarrett Lane, a Narrows High School graduate who was killed during the rampage.



• A proposal to consolidate four Mercer County middle schools - Athens, Oakvale, Lashmeet-Matoaka and Spanishburg - into one new school drew public outcry in May. Small but vocal crowds attended a series of public hearings in early June to voice their opposition to the proposed PikeView Middle School project. The $15 million project would reconfigure Oakvale, Spanishburg, Lashmeet/Matoaka and Athens schools into K-5 facilities. The middle school grades would be transferred to a new facility, PikeView Middle School, next to PikeView High School. In July, the controversial school consolidation plan was approved by the Mercer County Board of Education. The school system was awarded $12.5 million in state funding to construct the new PikeView Middle School.



• Members of the South Bluefield Merchants and Professional Association announced plans in late June to extend a wireless camera surveillance system to more than a dozen additional blocks and side streets in Bluefield. The camera system is already operational in downtown Bluefield with a continuous video loop that feeds into the Bluefield Police Department. Downtown merchants say the camera system is helping to reduce crime.



• A week-long fugitive apprehension campaign called Operation FALCON netted 43 arrests on a variety of charges in Mercer County in late June.



• Bluefield, also known as “Nature’s Air-Conditioned City,” flirted with hitting the magic 90 degree mark several times in 2008, but on each occasion the mercury came just a few percentage points shy of free lemonade.



• Construction continued in 2008 on the new $16.3 million King Coal Highway bridge project in Bluefield. The twin bridge project will connect the K.A. Ammar Interchange with Stoney Ridge, bringing the local Interstate 73/74 corridor closer to Route 123 and the Mercer County Airport. In July, legislation earmarking another $10 million in federal funds for the King Coal Highway and the Coalfields Expressway cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee.



• A citizens group seeking a recall election of the Bluefield City Board of Directors filed a writ of mandamus petition in July asking the Mercer County Circuit Court to compel action by the city board on the recall petition. The city board had previously rejected the document, arguing it didn’t meet the legal requirements of a recall petition. The recall petition contains the signatures of 232 citizens seeking to oust the current board. The citizens group was seeking a new election, and argued the board had violated and continues to not comply with state statues, specifically the Open Government Meetings Act. The court challenge was ultimately rejected.



• A plan for a proposed skating rink in Bluefield was unveiled in July. The proposed synthetic skating rink is envisioned as a winter attraction for Bluefield.



• In July, an IRS report found thousands of senior citizens across Mercer and McDowell counties hadn’t applied for their economic stimulus tax rebates.



• The Daily Telegraph’s 20th straight year of downtown Bluefield concerts on Friday ended in August. The Chicory Square noon programs were started in 1988.



• A prominent local physician was sentenced in mid-September to one month in prison and five months of home confinement for filing a false tax return.



• The city of Bluefield launched a new public comment line in early September in hopes of generating new ideas on how to help the city. The new line allows area residents to call and leave recorded suggestions on how to improve or promote new economic growth in Nature’s Air-conditioned City.



• Department of Natural Resource officials confirmed in September that crayfish were to blame for a slow leak at Jimmy Lewis Lake in Mercer County. The lake at Pinnacle Rock State Park is usually 15 acres, but a combination of a leak and dry conditions drained the lake.



• Officials with Princeton Community Hospital announced in late September that plans were proceeding for the conversion a former Mercer County hospital into a new psychiatric care pavilion offering services to teens and adults. St. Luke’s Hospital in Bluefield closed April 2007, but the facility’s owner, Princeton Community Hospital, started exploring possible uses for the vacated structure soon after its closure.



• A project designed to increase the number of customers Princeton’s wastewater treatment plant can handle received an economic boost in mid-September with a $2.5 million U.S. Economic Development Administration grant. The EDA funding will help finance the approximately $7 million project to upgrade the city’s wastewater treatment facility. The infrastructure upgrade is expected to help facilitate new economic development and growth in Princeton.



• A Daily Telegraph editorial board session with incumbent Gov. Joe Manchin resulted in an enterprise story when he was quizzed about a state sales tax on home heating fuel that was going into the state road fund. The governor was apparently unaware of the tax, but actually called the state’s tax commission to get details during the editorial board session. When Manchin became aware the tax was, indeed, funding state roads, he went on record saying it was not fair to tax home heating oil consumers for the road fund and would look into eliminating the tax.



• Long-time Mercer County Delegate Eustace Frederick died a mere three days after the Nov. 4 election. He was a long-time member of the House of Delegates who did not seek re-election this year.



• Homicides also dominated news coverage during 2008, with several murders and arrests reported across the region. Among these stories:

- the Jan. 8 death of a McDowell County man, which spurred a murder investigation after his body was found near his burned-out car.

- the arrest of two men in Princeton in connection with the September homicide of a man who was killed after being struck in the head with a skateboard.

- homicide charges against two Buchanan County, Va., brothers for the January stabbing death of a Vansant man.

- the arrest of a Mercer County man on homicide charges in connection with the death of a Pinnacle Rock employee in September of 2007.

- the stabbing death of a 71-year-old man in Anawalt, and the subsequent arrest and extradition of a North Carolina man who was charged with first-degree murder.

- The early February accidental shooting death of a 17-year-old in McDowell County. Although classified as an accidental shooting, a woman was later charged with child neglect.



• The recognition of Mercer and Monroe counties as among “America’s 100 Best Communities for Youth” (the third consecutive year Mercer received the honor and the second consecutive year for Monroe), and the award of $3.6 million in federal funds to two Mercer County projects - the Wood Education Resource Center and the Princeton Memorial Building and All-Wars Museum, were among good news headlines in 2008.