Feb. 10 through time
By Holly Kozelsky and Pat Pion
1924
Globman’s celebrated its ninth anniversary with a “Final Clean-Up Sale – Started with a Rush! Still Going Strong!” Offerings included 500 pairs of ladies low heel oxfords and pumps, values to $6 - $1.98; Ladies Waists (shirts), $1.50 value, 49 cents; Corsets, small sizes, 25 cents; Brassieres, 10 cents; men’s Shirts, 88 cents; Gowns, 98 cents.
1949
The Optimist Club’s third annual First Citizens award went to Mayor Nick Prillaman.
1960
Irving M. Groves, Jr. won the Distinguished Service Award for 1960 at the annual banquet of the Martinsville Junior Chamber of Commerce at the Lynwood Club. Mr. Groves is the president and trust officer at Piedmont Bank. Other candidates for this year’s award include Robert L. Canupp, Jr. and Frank D. Fulton.
A former Martinsville woman and her 7-year-old granddaughter are still missing. The FBI was brought in to join in the search. The grandmother, along with the child’s aunt, faces a charge of abduction. The aunt is being held in Danville jail. The child’s mother is under treatment in a Danville hospital. She is charged with contempt of court for failure to deliver the child to her father after having the child for a week at Christmas. Currently, the grandmother and child are suspected of being in Stuart but no one has been able to locate them.
The Virginia Assembly is set to take up the ongoing discussion of instituting a retail sales tax when they come back to session this week. Governor J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., has stated that the time is at hand to institute the 3% tax. Virginia has been able to preserve its status as a “non-sales tax oasis in the midst of sister states which employ the tax.” The discussion has included the possibility of a 2% rather than a 3% sales tax. The issue last year was tied to the touchy subject of school desegregation, which came to a few localities last February, but is becoming a stand-alone issue since it appears a majority of the Assembly favors the measure, which will net about $145,000,000 over the next two years.
The Bottoms-Fiske Trucking Company terminal in Martinsville is still being picketed by union members. The union members of the High Point, N.C. company claim negotiations are being stalled because of management’s stand on rehiring striking workers.
1974
In observance of Race Relations Sunday, High Street Baptist Church and Villa Heights Baptist Church swapped pastors. The Rev. John Powers (a black man) of High Street, accompanied by the High Street choir, rendered service at Villa Heights, and the Rev. E.J. Barbour (a white man) of Villa Heights and the Villa Heights choir rendered service at High Street.
Blair Duncan of Woolwine was the president of the Reynolds-Patrick Memorial Hospital board of directors. Other officers were Hugh A. White Jr., Norman Biggs, Robert C. Boaz, Willie Conner, Martin F. Clark, Judge John D. Hooker, A.D. Hopkins, Hugh A. White and Charles Mills, Carol Rupprecht, Harold Slate Frank Netherland, Henry Ayers, Buddy Williams and Frank Greenwalt. Five members who had just retired were Ada Conner, Crystal Cruise, Margaret Joyce, Carl Ayers and Herbert Pilson.
1999
Henry County Circuit Court Deputy Clerk Vicki Helmstutler announced that she would run for Clerk of Henry County Circuit Court in the November election, seeking to replace Juanita Stewart, who was retiring. Eleven years before, she and 11 other candidates lost the job to Stewart in election. Helmstutler would go on to win the position and retire from it in December 2015, after 40 years total working for the Circuit Court; Jennifer Ashworth was elected as the next Circuit Court Clerk.
2024
The Virginia Museum of Natural History’s next exhibit, “Masters of the Night: The True Story of Bats,” opens today.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.