Alpha stays, light shows & courage

THUMBS UP TO:

Keeping Alpha in Southwest Virginia

The governor’s office announced this week that Alpha Natural Resources, currently headquartered in Abingdon, Va., will build its new corporate headquarters in Bristol, Va. The company’s growth is due to its merger with Foundation Coal Holdings earlier this year, a merger that makes Alpha the third-largest coal company in the United States.

Company president Kevin Crutchfield said Alpha has been under pressure to move to a more metropolitan area since the July merger. Localities in Maryland and Tennessee made offers to the company, along with Bristol and Washington County, Va.

The $21 million building, to be located in the city’s new Sugar Hollow Business Complex, is slated for completion in 2011. Part of the incentive package from the state is $3.4 million in Tobacco Region Opportunity Funds and $1 million from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership.

We are thrilled to see this homegrown company build its new headquarters in Bristol and for state leaders to work vigorously to keep this company in Virginia. The project is expected to create 69 jobs and keep 131 jobs in the area. Alpha employs 6,200 people and operates 60 mines and 14 coal preparation plants.

Holiday light shows get under way

Speedway in Lights, which benefits the Speedway Children’s Charities program, opens tonight at the Bristol Motor Speedway. This is the 13th consecutive season for the light show, which has as its primary sponsors Autotrader.com and Tennessee Valley Authority, The show includes more than 2 million lights and more than 200 light displays. Visitors drive a 4.5-mile route through the World’s Fastest Half-Mile and through Thunder Valley at Bristol Dragway.

Cost is $10 per car Sunday through Thursday and $12 per car on Fridays and Saturdays. Cost for activity vans is $15; tour buses cost $65. The light show runs through Jan. 2, 2010.

Another popular light show also began this week – Shadrack Watersports started its annual light show in Bristol, Tenn., on Friday. The company also has light shows at its locations in West Knoxville, Tenn. (beginning Nov. 19) and in Sevierville, Tenn. (it began Nov. 6). The computer-controlled show can be seen from the highway, near BMS.

Both shows are becoming holiday traditions in the region. Get out and enjoy them.

THUMBS DOWN TO:

Agencies apparently were slow to act

Various media outlets have learned that Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the man indicted for murder in the Fort Hood tragedy, repeatedly tried to contact people associated with al-Qaida and that U.S. intelligence agencies were aware of his attempts. What is not clear is whether those agencies told the Army about the situation.

Earlier this week, ABC News reported that investigators are looking into Hasan’s ties to Anwar al-Awlaki, “a radical mosque leader from Virginia” now living in Yemen. For some time, Hasan attended Awlaki’s Virginia mosque while both lived in the area. According to ABC, on Monday, Awlaki posted a blog entry, “Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing,” in which he praises Hasan as a “man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”

Hasan, who had been in a coma since the attack that killed 13 people and wounded 29, has regained consciousness and the ability to talk, according to the Associated Press.

It is not clear if intelligence agencies were slow to act because they were unclear about Hasan’s motives or did not want to be perceived as bigoted.

Does anyone else remember this: In Catholic school, if one of the nuns caught you trying to pass notes, trying to communicate with someone you shouldn’t, your attempts were quickly intercepted and you were whisked off to see the principal. In matters of security, why can’t our government be more like those no-nonsense nuns? Someone should have had the courage to press and ask.