Search to resume today for missing James River boater

Authorities plan to resume their search today for a boater who went missing in the James River in Charles City County.

A 58-year-old man was thrown from the johnboat he was operating yesterday about 6 p.m. when it hit something underwater about 200 to 300 yards upstream from a pier at Lawrence Lewis Jr. Park, said Julia Dixon, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

The man had been returning from fishing with a passenger and was not wearing a life jacket, Dixon said. Authorities did not immediately release his name.

Conservation police officers searched by boat, and authorities from Charles City and Prince George County assisted, as did a helicopter, Dixon said.

The man is at least the second person this summer to go missing in the James River near Lawrence Lewis Jr. Park off state Route 5.

Jack Roosevelt Ross, 16, disappeared July 9 while swimming in the river. His body was found the following day on the river bottom, about 19 feet below the surface.

-- Reed Williams