Dec. 31
100 Years ago – 1924
The officers of the local chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union were Mrs. Faith T. Parrott, president; vice-presidents Mrs. John W. Simmons, Mrs. Joseph R. Taylor and Mrs. J.E. English; recording secretary, Mrs. Ansley J. Lester; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Paul Turner; treasurer, Mrs. J. William Jones.
75 years ago – 1949
The Hedgecock Brick Co. was sold to the Roanoke-Webster Brick Co. of Roanoke.
The Rives Theatre held a Midnite Show with all seats 52 cents. Doors opened at 11:15 p.m. Free hats and horns were given away. The movies shown were “Make Mine Laughs” and “Follow Me Quietly.”
1960
Prizes for the first local baby of 1961 were donated by McCarty Bedding Co., Heiner’s Tots and Teens Shop, Troxler Furniture Store, Townes Furniture Store, Mongomery-Ward Store, Kingoff’s Jewelers, Fagg’s Drugstore, Wickline Pharmacy, Lester Bros., Snow White Diaper Service, Joyce’s Drugstore, Louise’s Stork Shop, Lavinder House, Clover Creamery, Grant’s Store, The Bargain Center, Southwest Virginia Gas Col, McKee’s, Bryant Florist, Patterson’s Drugstore, Cooper and Ratcliff Grocery, Leggett’s Store and Kearfott’s Drug Store.
50 years ago – 1974
City Council voted unanimously to buy out two rental leased from tenants of the city-owned buildings at Church and Bridge streets. Mrs. Anastasia Basha, proprietor of Eagle Sandwich Shop, would receive $6,000 for the 4 years remaining on her 5-year lease. Calvin Riggs, the proprietor of the pool hall in that building, would get $1,000 in exchange for the 2 remaining years of his 5-year lease. City Manager George W. Brown was instructed to keep negotiating with George Salmons to buy his share of the Eagle building. That was the last property in that block which the Redevelopment Authority needed to buy. As soon as that building were handled, the City could demolish it, and that would wrap up the Central Business District redevelopment plan. (This is the block which now is a parking lot in front of the uptown Post Office and Walsh’s Chicken.)
25 years ago – 1999
The City, the County and area banks and businesses assured the public that they all had taken precautions to avoid any potential Y2K problems. Henry County had a Y2K hotline which started operating on Dec. 29 to tell people how the County was prepared for Y2K and to offer tips on how people could prepare themselves. The hotline was manned by county personnel from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. that Wednesday and Thursday. Friday was New Year’s Eve, and the line would be manned all the way through until it was no longer needed on New Year’s Day.
American Electric Power said it was Y2K ready but still had extra staff on duty just in case of any disruptions, so that electric customers would not panic. One thousand five hundred employees were on duty at 90 company locations across its seven-state service area. The company’s spokesperson pointed out that the company normally has that many workers on standby anyway, for common power outages caused by things such as a car running into a utility pole, but since it was the night of Y2K, people might think a normal power outage was due instead to major Y2K problems.
Yellow Cab and Gravely Cab gave free rides home (but not to other parties) on New Year’s Eve, sponsored by Piedmont Community Services and the Drug Task Force of Martinsville and Henry County, to prevent drunk-driving accidents.
Kenneth King of Horsepasture and Sherry Dixon of Roanoke spent the night before their wedding at the Horsepasture Fire Department, where King had volunteered to man his amateur radio station un case anything went wrong with Y2K. Two dozen members of the local Amateur Radio Emergency Service group, including King, had volunteered to provide the county’s emergency service personnel at each fire department and rescue squad with a means of communication in case the power or phone systems were interrupted. Pete Stolbunov was the local AIRES coordinator and had set up his radio at the county’s Emergency Operations Center.
— Information from museum records and the Henry Bulletin and the Martinsville Bulletin.