LOCALLY OWNED & OPERATED 75¢ COVERING CHARLOTTE, LUNENBURG & PRINCE EDWARD COUNTIES THE 5 P.O.Southside Box 849, Keysville Va. 23947 July 30-August 5, 2020Messenger Vol. 17, No.6 INSIDE THIS EDITION BELOW THE FOLD Lunenburg Insider Tri County Sports Charlotte County Solar Project Comes Matthews Honored by Public Schools • Reed Signs Contract to a Halt Dixie Softball with LA Chargers The Southside Messenger The Southside Messenger Announcements Lunenburg Insider B Tri-County Sports Charlotte, Lunenburg and Prince Edward Co. Athletic News • Economic Relief Grants THE SOUTHSIDE MESSENGER • July 30-August 5, 2020 THE SOUTHSIDE MESSENGER • July 30-August 5, 2020 B5 & Bus Routes Lunenburg Gets New Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney VHSL Announces Sports Plan for 2020-21 LUNENBURG - An expe- Clement. “She has a great rienced prosecutor who was work ethic and a wealth of STATEWIDE - The VHSL Contest Date – December 28) benefits of getting our stu- raised in Lunenburg County knowledge of criminal law Executive Committee meeting basketball, gymnastics, dents back to a level of par- is now the Assistant Com- and procedure.” in special session today vot- indoor track, swim/dive, ticipation. The Condensed • COVID-19 Update monwealth’s Attorney there. Spiers graduated from ed (34-1-0) to move forward wrestling Interscholastic Plan leaves Jordan A. Spiers, a 30-year- Virginia Tech with two de- with Model 3 in its re-open- Season 2 (fall) February 15 open the opportunity to play See Pages A5-A7 old former prosecutor in grees, political science and ing of sports and activities – May 1 (First Contest Date – all sports in all three sea- Mecklenburg County, started sociology, in 2012. She grad- for the 2020-21 school year. March 1) sons if Virginia moves be- her duties July 1. Spiers lived uated from Campbell Law Model 3 delays all VHSL sports cheer, cross country, field yond Phase III and/or Phase in the Dundas area of Lunen- School in 2015. She interned and activities until December hockey, football, golf, volley- III guidelines are revised and five summers in the Com- 14 and adopts the Condensed ball High Risk Activities are al- fice of Brunswick County, con, Jr., from the age of five. and served nearly five years field Buckinghamher first day here and han Branch Railroad Adds recently led to a fire that got The KFD firefighters were Intermodalcalled to a field fire on Berry Facility in Charlotte Co. They raced to the fire location firefighters. The fire covered The Buckingham Branchto limit the spread of the fire in 2007. Following the clos- create 37 new jobs.” Railroad recently announced ing of Alderman the facility The Blue Ridge Facility the purchase of the Blue Ridge was purchased in December was closed following a fire “Red Brick Solar offers a new Donald Bass Railcar Repair Facility in the 2013 Inquiriesby and effortsBlue by Ridge Railcar in January 2016. The com- while outlining the benefits talk with Red Brick officials Charlotte County Industri- Repair, a subsidiaryperb conferenceof staff Patriot and we are all committed to hostingpany announced plans to re- al Park located on Horseshoe Rail Company. Thewaiver thatcompany would provide unprecedented scheduling flex pair and reopen the facility in Donald Bass Bend Road adjacentofficials asking for the ap to the planned to “invest $2.41 mil- May, 2016. Brittany Easter Ortiz Heartland Industrial Park. lion to expand its operations The facilityLCYBL was officials stated,purchased The facility was opened in Charlotte County, Va., as ficials including LCYBL Pres See Buckinghamball officials Wayne on Norton page A11 Meherrin Woman by Alderman Railcar Service part of a project competitionwhich in 2020-21 as solutions will are finalized and im Sentenced to the past five months. Twenty Years Arrested Following Shooting CHARLOTTE COURT NOT A NEWS STORY HOUSE –On July 22, 2020 MEHERRIN - A shoot- Judge Kimberly S. White By Averett Jones, Editor tell this story. visitors. ing incident in Meherrin sentenced Donald C. Bass This is not a news sto- The boys declared it “the resulted in the arrest of ry. Had things continued Tragedy Narrowly Avoided best beach ever.” While the on three charges of dis- On Saturday, July 8, 2020, a Meherrin woman. The tributing cocaine in Char- to go wrong it would have boys were catching snails shooting incident took been front page in dozens local grandparents took two and swimming the old folks lotte County. Bass was of their grandsons to en- place around 9:30 p.m. sentenced to 20 years, with of newspapers. This story were sitting on the beach on July 25 along Schul- happens each year around joy a day at Buggs Island talking. all but two years suspend- Lake. They unloaded jet skis tz Mill Road in Meherrin. ed on each charge for an the state and country. In al- Just a few minutes lat- When they arrived, dep- most all similar cases no one at Bluestone Landing. Each er all four were fighting for active six-year sentence. grandparent was driving a jet uties from Prince Edward All suspended time is con- is left to tell what happened. their lives in deep water. County Sheriff’s office We are sharing this story in ski with a pre-teen grandson This is where many of ditional to his good behav- riding. As required everyone found a man with a gun- ior for a period of 20 years the hope that our readers the news stories transition shot wound. will learn the same lesson was wearing life jackets. and completion of two The family rode to the to the body recovery efforts. The wounded man was years supervised proba- we did and prevent our hav- There is usually the com- taken to Centra Southside ing to cover another tragedy. main lake and landed on a tion. He is also ordered to sandy beach. You couldn’tment that “no one knows Community Hospital, ac- pay $600 in restitution to In the interest of disclo- what happened.” cording to reports. sure, this is a personal sto- have asked for a more per- the VSP BCI Criminal Fund. For the first person ac- The investigation re- ry. It happened to two of fect spot. There was a gen- The charges were the re- tly sloping beach with various count, please see the Com- sulted in the arrest of a sult of an investigation by our grandchildren, my wife mentary Page A-4 We Were 24-year-old Meherrin and me. It was only by the teepees and other driftwood the Tri-County Drug and structures built by previous Stupid and Survived. resident, Brittany Eas- Gang Task Force. grace of God we are here to ter Ortiz, 24. She was The Tri-County Drug charged with malicious and Gang Task Force is wounding and taken comprised of Narcotics to Piedmont Regional Jail. Investigators and Special The investigation is ongo- Agents of the Charlotte Reed Signs Contract with LA Chargers ing and anyone with infor- County Sheriff’s Office, mation about the incident Lunenburg County Sher- is asked to call Lt. Joseph LOS ANGELES, CALIF. - terms with Oklahoma line- iff’s Office, and the -Virgin Sprague at (434) 392-8101. Charlotte County native Joe backer Kenneth Murray Jr. ia State Police Division III Reed made his journey to the (No. 23) and UCLA running Bureau of Criminal Inves- NFL official this past week- back Joshua Kelley (No. 112). tigation Appomattox Field end when he signed a con- A second-team All-Ameri- Office. Southside Virginia tract with the Los Angeles can from USA Today in 2019, Sheriff R.S Freeman Chargers. Reed finished his Virginia ca- encourages any individu- COVID-19 Cases Update The Chargers issued the reer as the school’s all-time als with information re- following release about his leader in kickoff return yard- garding illegal drug activ- SOUTHIDE - Virginia signing as well as several age (3,042) and kickoff return ity to contact the Charlotte had one of the highest one- other draft picks for the team. touchdowns (five), including County Sheriff’s Office at day totals of COVID-19 In addition to the signings one that he took 100 yards for 434-542-5141, Lunenburg cases over the past week- of Oregon quarterback Justin a score in 2019. He is the only County Sheriff’s Office at end and numbers contin- Herbert (No. 6 overall), Vir- player in FBS history with 434-696-4452, or the Vir- Joe Reed ue to climb as people ei- ginia wide receiver Joe Reed 2,700-plus kickoff return ginia State Police Drug Hot ther do not believe that (fifth round, No. 151), No- and Ohio State wide receiver yards and a return average of Line at 1-800-553-DOPE the virus is dangerous or tre Dame safety Alohi Gil- KJ Hill (seventh round, No. at least 28 yards-per-return (3673). are choosing to ignore the man (sixth round, No. 186) 220), the team also agreed to for his career. guidelines for such things as entering stores with- out a mask. One week after Governor Ralph Northam Town & County Industrial Development Authorities Provide $20,000 Total Economic Relief Grants issued more strict guide- lines on wearing masks in FARMVILLE – The Town $10,000 total for small busi- from each authority com- After receiving more than public the COVID-19 cases of Farmville Industrial De- nesses during this challeng- prised the joint committee 30 applications, the commit- continue increasing daily. velopment Authority and the ing time. The two authori- that made the decisions to tee narrowed down the field In Virginia the total Prince Edward County Indus- ties decided to collaborate to allocate the grant money.