May 7
By Holly Kozelsky and Pat Pion
100 Years ago – 1924
Kearfott and Sons, druggist, established in 1881, recently had bought Beckner’s Confectionery, of which H.S. Kearfott would be in charge. The confectionary, a soft drink stand, was located in the Henry Hotel. They planned to add Kodaks and supplies to their stock. They were offering a $10 prize for the best suggested new name for the confectionery.
A fire in the finishing department of American Furniture Co. caused a loss of more than $25,000. A sprinkler system confined the fire to one room, and damages were covered by insurance.
75 years ago – 1949
An estimated 1,500 people attended the $100 quiz program at the Kiwanis club’s first annual Henry County Exposition. Quizmaster was Johnny Shultz of WMVA. Between the three sessions of the quiz program, merchandise donated by local businesses was auctioned off. Paul Zimmerman and his Orchestra performed music.
1960
The Blue Ridge Boy Scout Council, representing 14 counties in Virginia, kicked off a campaign to raise $400,000 to enlarge Camp Powhatan which included purchasing an additional 15,215 acres in Pulaski County as well as establishing training centers, headquarters and picnic areas. They anticipated membership to grow from 8,000 boys to 12,000 in five years.
Eight black high school students from Grayson County petitioned a federal court to be admitted to white schools in Grayson County or Galax. They were traveling 90 to 100 miles per day from their homes near Galax to a black high school in Wytheville. There was no black high school in Grayson County. The School boards and superintendents in Grayson County and Galax as well as the State Pupil Placement Board were named as defendants.
50 years ago – 1974
It was a shake-up on City Council as Barry Greene, 33, and G.S. “Sandy” Fitz-Hugh, 34, ended the political career of Mayor Francis T. West, who had been on City Council since 1966 and mayor since 1972. A record number of voters turned out for what was one of Martinsville’s closest elections. Greene was a department store executive and Fitz-Hugh was a banker. It was the second loss for West, too, since the previous November he lost to Virgil Goode Jr., 27, of Rocky Mount in special election for the State Senate. West had little support among black voters. He had advocated precinct consolidation, which would have diluted the black vote and was opposed by the Voters’ League, and earlier in the campaign, he appeared before the Voters League to “soften what I am told in the minds of some is a brittleness between the black community and me.” West, who established West Window Corporation, was one of the founders of Patrick Henry Community College, and Francis T. West Hall is named after him. He was the chair of the board of PHCC when it opened, but he publicly fought against the admission and matriculation of PHCC’s first black student, Hazel Adams, in 1962, a matter which was reported on as far up as the New York Times.
25 years ago - 1999
The Henry County Public Schools system was planning to buy surveillance cameras for all of its school buses and high school hallways. The total cost for 101 Bus Watch systems was $86,860. Cameras already had been up in the halls of Basett Middle School for a year. To have them in all four county high schools, it would cost $140,000.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin accessed on microfilm at the Martinsville Branch Library.