Sentencing set for March 2008

Drugs apparently played a role in the shooting of a Tazewell County deputy and the armed robbery of two stores in October.
Evidence presented during the Dec. 14 preliminary hearing for Scottie Stinson, 27, of Bandy, Wallace Kinder, 34, of Cedar Bluff and Tracy Coxton, 32 of Tazewell, indicated that the need for money to buy pills was a motive for the robberies.

Center director recovers from illness

Trials to be held in Circuit Court

The governing bodies of the town of Wytheville, Wythe County and Bland County are moving closer to another joint initiative – this time involving the consolidation of each community’s E-911 dispatch center.
In addition to the three local government agencies, the Virginia State Police also has joined the proposal.

One of Wednesday morning’s most serious weather-related accidents involved a Good Samaritan who fell more than 50 feet down an embankment beside an Interstate 81 bridge in Wythe County.
Heather Arnold of Bland, a registered nurse at Pulaski Community Hospital, sustained a concussion and broken pelvis from the tumble.

The suspected robber of a Wytheville pharmacy has been found dead in a West Virginia motel room. Charles Reese Lowe, 45, of Princeton apparently died of a drug overdose.
According to Capt. Rick Arnold of the Wytheville Police Department, his office was notified that a person matching the description of the suspect in the Oct. 26 robbery of the Rite-Aid Pharmacy in Wytheville was found dead in a Princeton motel. The death has been ruled an apparent suicide.

County native cruises in to new job

Twins turn military into a career

A dozen bird species found at least part of the year in Southwest Virginia are among the 178 birds species two conservation groups called the “most imperiled” on the North American continent.
In a joint teleconference Wednesday, officials with the National Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy released their cooperatively compiled WatchList 2007 that includes birds in most immediate need of conservation efforts to slow and halt their flight into extinction.