July 1 through the years
100 Years ago – 1925
A grand Chatauqua program was entertaining the citizens of Martinsville. That was several days of assorted forms of entertainments, including music by the Bornsheins musical company; the lecture “Getting By Your Hoodoo” by Sam Garthwell; the lecture “How to Dress Well” by Mrs. Dominick; the drama “The Next Best Man”; a concert by Lowell Patton and more.
75 years ago – 1950
The Patrick County Board of Supervisors granted the school board permission to enter a lease agreement with Dr. W.N. Thompson. Two additional rooms would be built onto the building that the school board was renting, and their rent would go up from the present $30 to $50.
50 years ago – 1975
It was the first day of the Virginia’s Clean Air Act, which required industries to control air pollution in five major categories: particulates (dirt), sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide, all associated with fuel combustion, and hydrocarbons, usually associated with fuel storage and other evaporative-type stored liquids. Assistant Regional Director for the State Air Pollution Control Board M.M. Clingenpeel reported that most Henry County industries had gotten themselves in compliance with the law, which was passed in 1970.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Steagall Sr. were awarded $125,000 by a U.S. District Court jury in New Orleans in damages for the death of their son, Dr. Robert Vernon Stegall Jr. The son and his wife were on their honeymoon when they were shot to death on Jan. 7, 1973, trying to run out of a burning hotel as police fought a day-long gun battle with a 23-year-old shooter, Mark Essex. Eight people were killed and 17 were injured. The gunman was killed by gunfire by police in a helicopter, but police kept firing – apparently at each other – until early the next morning, unsure of how many gunmen there were. The newlywed couple’s bodies were found locked in an embrace, on the 18th floor. He had been shot in the heart and arm and she had been shot in the head. R. Reid “Jim” Young of Young, Kiser, Haskins and Mann in Martinsville represented the Steagalls. The parents of Elizabeth Steagall were awarded $70,000.
25 years ago - 2000
Martinsville Mayor Mark Crabtree invited the Henry County Board of Supervisors to a joint meeting to talk about ways the City and County could collaborate in providing services. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Haskell, whose term as city council member had just ended, said the 1997 merger of the County and City social services departments did not go well, which indicated to her that other mergers would not go well either.
People who went on the Virginia Museum of Natural History’s dinosaur dig in Wyoming include Nancy Bell, the public relations coordinator and grant writer for City schools; Nancy Counts, a Martinsville High School special education teacher; John Johnson, an earth science teacher at MHS, and students Chad Flanagan, Mary McGregor Knighten and Mary Catherine McGinn (whose essays on why they wanted to join the expedition won them the experience).
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.