The Top Ten Stories Of 2008

U.S. voters opened a new chapter for the nation Nov. 4 – giving the nation’s first black president more popular votes than any of his predecessors. And president-elect Barack Obama spent a lot of time in Southwest Virginia as he sought that honor.

His visits highlighted a monumental year for the Mountain Empire, which saw domestic disturbances explode the local homicide rate; a tornado rip through a sleepy community; and national foreclosure and job loss crises hit home just as residents were forced to pay record amounts for gasoline and electricity.

Political transitions and controversy also filled 2008 in the region, highlighted by small-town political shenanigans and a battle over building a power plant.
A panel of Bristol Herald Courier editors selected the top 10 news stories of 2008.

1. Obama campaign spotlights the region

The glare of a national presidential campaign shone not once but thrice on the Mountain Empire as Democrat Barack Obama stumped for votes in traditionally right-leaning Southwest Virginia and Republic John McCain made an election-eve stop at the Tri-Cities Airport.

With Virginia in play, and fresh from locking up the Democratic nomination after the final primaries, Obama kicked off his drive to the White House at a June 5 town hall rally at Virginia High School in Bristol. A crowd of about 2,500 waited in line for hours to hear the sleep-deprived U.S. senator from Illinois speak.

Obama returned Sept. 9, appearing before a standing-room only rally at Lebanon High School in Russell County.

His visits marked the first time a Democratic presidential contender has campaigned in this region in more than four decades.

The Lebanon visit got extensive play in the national media, after Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” remark sparked a huge debate, with Republicans claiming it was a slam against GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

McCain would go on to garner the most votes in Southwest Virginia, but statewide he fell short of his Democratic rival, and all 13 of the state’s delegates went to Obama.

2. Four die in Edgemont Towers shootings

If tragedies are catalogued by lost lives, the four people gunned down in February at Edgemont Towers and the shooter who took his own life would rank as one of the worst in the region’s history.

On a bitterly cold day, Rusty Rumley Jr. entered the Bristol, Tenn., high-rise and shot to death Frances Watson, 43; Roy Malone, 55; Brandon Roskos, 20; and Danny Wayne Murray, 53 – before fleeing the scene and turning the gun on himself in the woods of Carter County, Tenn.

Rumley, 26, was distraught over a failed romance with Watson’s daughter, Brandy Cloyd, who had left him for her longtime sweetheart Roskos.

Cloyd was the only one to escape her mother’s apartment that day.

While Cloyd, Watson and Roskos were evident targets, Murray and Malone were neighbors. The body count and senseless violence of that day catapulted Bristol into the national spotlight, and deeply shocked residents here who were unaccustomed to homicide on such a scale.

3. Dominion power plant approved, protested

After years of conflict and controversy, the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center was approved for construction June 25 on a site outside St. Paul, Va. Its ground-breaking in August was the first for a new coal-fired power plant in Virginia in more than 16 years, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is coordinating legal challenges to the plant.

And in September, 11 protestors bound themselves to barrels to block the construction entrance.

The many public hearings required by the regulatory process to approve Dominion Virginia Power’s 585-megawatt plant, were attended in droves as people debated an issue that pitted jobs against the environment.

Opponents argued approval would encourage the expansion of mining practices they say are destroying their communities. Proponents – including a long list of state and local officials – said the new plant would energize the tax base in Wise County and bring jobs to the entire region.

Ultimately, the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board ratcheted down emissions controls on the plant, which will burn piles of waste coal and waste wood as well as run-of-mine coal. By year’s end, the plant’s 500-foot-tall chimney had been completed – the tallest structure in Southwest Virginia.

4. Roe upends incumbent, wins Congressional seat

Johnson City Mayor Phil Roe became the first candidate to topple an incumbent Tennessee congressman in a primary election since 1966, when he defeated U.S. Rep. David Davis, R-1st, in the August GOP primary.

That win all but assured Roe of taking the seat that represents eight counties in Northeast Tennessee, and that has been in Republican hands for more than 100 years.
Davis initially announced he would seek a recount of the 460-vote margin, but later conceded to the retired physician.

Republicans retained the seat in November as Roe easily defeated Democrat Rob Russell and three independents.

5. Region not immune from economic upheaval

The Mountain Empire become a microcosm of the nation’s economic woes during 2008, with consumers paying $4 a gallon for gasoline for a few weeks during the summer and sharply higher electric rates in the fall.

All the while, the region began suffering job losses and a sharp rise in home foreclosures. October’s jobless rate in the Bristol, Tenn.-Kingsport Metropolitan Statistical Area rose to 5.8 percent.

While the housing and credit crises that rocked many parts of the nation didn’t reach epidemic proportions in the region, the number of foreclosures and bankruptcies increased dramatically, according a group of real estate, banking and human service professionals.

This fall, both the Tennessee Valley Authority providers and Appalachian Power began charging significantly higher rates for electricity. TVA’s largest rate increase in more than three decades – 20 percent – took effect in October. Appalachian’s increase, also effective that month, was about 22 percent initially, but was dropped to about 17 percent.

To add insult to injury, dramatic drops in state-level funding prompted a series of cutbacks for transportation programs and headaches for local governments in both Virginia and Tennessee. Millions of dollars were put on the chopping block in both states.

6. Rash of domestic deaths rock region

Domestic tensions escalated into homicide at an alarming rate in 2008, with incidents occurring across the region.

Besides the Edgemont Towers shootings, three other domestic violence-related deaths were reported in Bristol, Tenn., police said. That represents more city homicides in that city than in the previous nine years combined.

Since August, at least four other domestic-related homicides were reported from Chilhowie, Va., to Bluff City, Tenn. – which was that community’s first murder in more than 40 years.

7. Sullivan becomes seat of Tennessee GOP power

While most of the country voted a Democratic president into office in November, Tennessee’s state Legislature went further right. That could be beneficial for Sullivan County, which could soon be home to both the state’s lieutenant governor and the speaker of the house.

Led by Rep. Jason Mumpower, R-3rd, the Republican Party gained four seats in the state House of Representatives and secured its first majority in the legislative body in modern history. Mumpower, who has served as the Republican Caucus’ leader since 2005, is all but guaranteed to be elected speaker when the House reconvenes Jan. 13.

State Sen. Ron Ramsey, R-2nd, is expected to coast into his second term as serving as the state’s lieutenant governor or speaker of the senate, after Republicans also gained Senate seats in the November election.

8. Political shenanigans haunt small towns

Three small towns made headlines in the Mountain Empire this year for political drama that left them battling in a Bristol Herald Courier poll for the title of most dysfunctional.

In Bluff City, Tenn., two mayors quit within six months before a former alderman led an unsuccessful effort to recall a mayor and three board members. The only member of the board not targeted in the recall effort shoved and cursed a Bristol Herald Courier reporter for writing about the cars in his backyard. Then, amid debate on the town’s budget ahead of a state deadline, a key town official took a six-week leave.

In Damascus, Va., the police force was the center of the drama during a heated election season and a change in the balance of power on the town council. A year after the town’s police chief was arrested and charged with selling drugs, the town fired another chief, (it’s fourth in four years.) Then, the town’s interim chief resigned, along with other town officers. In St. Paul, Va., the summer featured the indictment of four people on felony voter fraud charges stemming from that town’s election. Then the town council, with the balance of power changed by the election, voted to fire its police chief. Meanwhile, the St. Paul postmaster was arrested and charged with distribution of drugs.

9. Tornado strikes Big Stone Gap without warning

At least half a dozen homes were destroyed and 40 others damaged in Big Stone Gap, Va., when a tornado left a mile-long path of destruction through the Wise County town in early March.
There was no advance warning from the National Weather Service for the EF-1 class tornado.

While no serious injuries were reported from the storm, the 110-mile-per-hour winds left $3 million in damages and many shocked residents in their wake. Dozens of trees were uprooted, and debris littered roofs, roads, and public parks. More than 100 truckloads of debris were removed in the weeks of cleanup that followed.

10. Man convicted of raping wife; another trial pending

In the first week of the year, local, state and federal law enforcement were chasing a Bristol Tenn., man accused of abducting his estranged wife – a month after he sexually assaulted her.

Doug Young and Heather Moore – the two were divorced in the spring – were safely apprehended in Georgia after a week-long manhunt, and the matter handed over to the courts.

What emerged was a highly emotional, perplexing story of a marriage gone violently awry; of tender moments giving way to physical force; of the metamorphosis of Young from a well-regarded construction superintendent with no criminal record to a felon sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Young, who has maintained his innocence, has announced his intention to appeal the jury’s conviction for aggravated rape. He faces another trial in 2009 on additional charges of sexual assault filed after he and Moore were apprehended.