Oct. 11, 2005
 
UPLAND NEWS BRIEFS: Athens Pedestrian Killed; Bramwell October Fest Draws Brew Fans; Prison Job Fair Slated for BSC; Bluefield Man Pleads Guilty to Marijuana Cultivation Charge; Richlands Man Pleads Guilty in Drug Case
 
Compiled By William Paine
Bluefield News Network Writer
 
Athens, WV (BNN) -- Anthony Graham, 41, and his wife Tanya were driving near Athens just after midnight Friday, Oct. 7, 2005 when their car broke down. The couple started walking up the highway staying mostly on the road
 
shoulder to get help. One curve on the roadway had no shoulder and the two were forced to walk on the pavement. As they did a late model Honda Civic driving in the same direction rounded the corner and struck Anthony Graham. The driver of the Honda stopped at the next gas station and called the police. Graham, who lived in Athens, was rushed to Princeton Community Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
 
The driver of the Honda has not been charged with any crime.
 
Bramwell October Fest Draws More than 300
 
Bramwell, WV (BNN) --The music played and the beer flowed at the ninth annual October Fest in Bramwell West Virginia Saturday, Oct. 8, 2005. Over three hundred people attended from as far away as Utah to taste twenty one different varieties of brew provided by seven different breweries. Mercer County’s assistant prosecuting attorney and Bramwell native George Stitler came up with the idea.
 
“I thought that a festival at the bend of the Bluestone River in Bramwell with its historic mansions where people could drink a different beer and hear different music at each stop would be great,” Stitler explained. “I used to brew all the beer myself, I don’t do that anymore,” he continued. This young gent from Lerona, WV attended the October Fest for the first time ever.
 
“I love it man it’s great,” he said smiling. “What could be better? Hanging out in the country, nothing to worry about just drinking a beer.”
 
Pocahontas Prison Job Fair Slated at BSC
 
Bluefield, WV (BNN) --The Department of Corrections and the Virginia Employment Commission will hold a job fair at Bluefield State College on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, 2005 for the new state prison in Pocahontas Virginia. The prison is scheduled to open in March 2007 and will employ 218 security workers and 88 non-security staffers.
 
Forty to sixty corrections officers will be hired first with salaries ranging from $24,257 to $37,869 with full benefits.
 
Candidates must submit to a drug test and physical on site at Bluefield College and will be asked to relocate to central Virginia for up to two years of training.
 
Prison employee candidates must schedule an appointment before attending the Job Fair. Call the Virginia Employment Commission’s Cliff Williams for an application at (276) 946-4007.
 
Bluefield Man Pleads Guilty to Marijuana Cultivation; Richlands Man Pleads Guilty
 
Princeton, WV (BNN) -- Lawrence Allen Gibson, 23, of Bluefield, WV pled guilty to cultivation of Marijuana in Mercer County’s Circuit Court Friday, Oct. 7, 2005. Judge Frazier sentenced Gibson to serve one to five years in the state penitentiary and fined him $2500 for the crime.
 
In Frazier’s court on the same day, Joe Bill Lester, 58, of Richlands pled guilty to delivery of hydromorphone. He will spend 60 days in the Anthony Correctional Center for evaluation where he will be given psychological and intelligence tests. The judge will sentence Lester just before Christmas this year.