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Virginia Region History published in 1979




In the early 1970's the VAR began to publish THE REGION RECORD, a higher quality publication than many grotto publications of the time. Managing Editor was R.E. Whittemore, Kim Smith Tom Williams took care of design, make-up, production and circulation. Only three volumes were published with the last issue (no. 12) being Volume 3, no.4, 1979. This entire last issue was titled: "A History of the Virginia Region". As was routine of all publishing internal organizations of the NSS at that time, 4 copies were sent to the NSS Library. And a copy was sent to each VAR internal organization.

The following chapters include:

  1. Discovering West Virginia - Jumping Off, Fun with Roy and Earl, The endless Greenbrier, Oh-h-h-h Crap!, DC Grotto adopts Organ, Why it's called the Thunderbolt Passage, Ibinthruthesinks, The ugly caver emerges, Remember Grapevine?, Friendly Windymouth, From Sinnet to Thorn, Even Vertical Bill was a novice!, The Court, Mott Hole, Cass on a Dare, Cass the hard way, Tory Cave,Tom Vigour tours with WVACS, Civil Defense Goes Caving, The ill-fated weekend,Ringing in the New Year(s) at the Field House, Gallery.

  2. Discovering Virginia - Newberry-Banes, Taking Breathing's pulse, The BuckHill ghost, Easter Pig and Kaptain Karst go caving [this is a stitch!], Charlton and the animals, Virginia Cave Survey, Tazewell Indian Caves, The Fallen Rock project, D.O.M., Buddy Penley's Cave, Caves are where you find them, Two views of Miller's Cove, Seabolt Cave, Butler Cave, Signing-in at Starnes, Gilley Cave, The Bird, Clark's wonderful caverns, The Early joys of Pig Hole, Roy and Earl in Tazewell County, The Legend of Catawba Murder Hole, Terry Tarkington remembers Blue Hole, Clover Hollow, Miller's Cave, The Higgenbotham's Project, New River, The Endless Caverns survey, Warm River, Stuck in Aunt Nellie's Hole, Slusser's Chapel, Bargar Saltpeter.

  3. Grottos [starts in 1941, continues in order by year grottos were established] - DC (where it all began), VPI, Richmond, Charleston, Lexington, Elkins, UVA, Wytheville, Nova, PSC, Holston Valley, WVACS, Friendship Heights, Monongahela, American Univ., Shenandoah Valley, Iron Mtn, Sligo, Greenbrier, Tidewater, Flittermouse, Mtn Empire.

  4. Bring 'em back Alive - The Great Snedegar/Crookshank Adventure, Care-Net, Ode to Crookshanks, Hellhole, Incident at Warm River, Staunton Quarry, Catawba Murder Hole, Entanglement at Cass, Newberry's 160 the hard way, Breathing: Death in the Cathedral, Problems at Elkhorn Mtn., Overholt Blowing: Exposure Hurts, Effective Cave Rescue.

  5. People - John S. Petrie, Vertical Bill Cuddington, The Mysterious Cave Girl, the Indefatigable Sara Corrie, James William Houck, Jr., Alex Sproul, Annie meets Whitt, Dale Parrott, Easter Pig, Karl Prusik, Don Davison, Beyond C-3, Gallery.

  6. The Region - Working Together (organization), The "Spontaneous Happening"- a tradition is born, The Encampment, Region Projects, Blacksburg 1971 (NSS convention), The Region and its leaders, From the Region's minutes - starts with 4th region meeting in 1954.
Anne Whittemore

Now about the History Website


First of all I would like to thank Anne Whittemore who has graciously lent me her copy of the 1979 "Region Record" and made this web addition possible.

As in the original Region Record History there is an Index of articles.
articles index
Index of names for the people in the articles.
People index
Index of photographs
Photos index
Index of caves
Cave index
And finally an index of places and organizations
Places and Grottos.

All of these indexes can be found on both the top and bottom of every page in the History. I have organized the History on the website as closely to original as possible but not all the pages on the web correspond exactly to the pages in the original. This happens mostly where the articles consist of more than one page.

Vitas
vitas@intrepid.net

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This site was built with Frontier by Vitas and last modified on 5/18/03; 11:26:04 PM. Thanks for checking it out! Vitas@intrepid.net