The closure of the Brunswick Correctional Center, a target of budget-cutters seven years ago, has area residents upset and worried. It also has angered the county sheriff, who said he had four hours’ notice Tuesday before Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced that the prison would be closed. “I am profoundly saddened to hear of the closing,“ said Charlette T. Woolridge, the county administrator in Brunswick, located in Southside on the North Carolina border. The closing, she said, “will have devastating effect on Brunswick County’s economy and on the employees that work at that facility.“

Interstate 85 southbound through Brunswick County reopened this afternoon after workers finished clearing the spot where an oil tanker overturned, blocking most lanes for much of the day, the Virginia Department of Transportation said.

A 22-year-old Richmond woman died after she was struck by a stray bullet from a gunfight between two men outside a nightclub Sunday in Brunswick County, authorities confirmed today. Shannon E. Henley was pronounced dead at Southern Virginia Regional Medical Center in Emporia not long after the 3 a.m. shooting at Meljos at U.S. 58 and Reedy Creek Road, said Brunswick Sheriff’s Maj. Kent C. Washburn.

For years, few residents in Brunswick County even knew about Fort Christanna and its place in history. Located in a wooded area down a dirt road, the fort was marked only with a monument—its historic significance as the first Colonial establishment in what is now Brunswick County was little known but to a few enthusiasts and historians.

Petite Brunswick County teacher Ruby Simmons Short used to tell a son: “If I have to be among three guys weighing over 200 pounds [each], I have to hold my own.“ Mrs. Short, who stood about 5-foot-3, did hold her own, by virtue of her lifestyle, said her son, William Joseph Short II of Washington. “She was not that big, but people respected her. She constantly wanted them to achieve and was interested in helping them out. She was always interested in making things better,“ her son said.

E. Norborne Doyle Jr. knew how to multi-task. He served as town manager and mayor in the Brunswick County town of Lawrenceville from 1980 to 1990, when he was replaced as mayor. Mr. Doyle also was part owner of radio station WLES when he was elected to the Lawrenceville Town Council in 1964. He reported news on the air and did many other jobs around the station, said his wife, Evangeline Reese Doyle. He sold his partnership in 1980.

Ex-officer facing 22 sex counts He’s jailed without bond as case now involves Chesterfield, Brunswick Former Virginia State Police Capt. Edward L. Hope Jr. was jailed without bond yesterday after being served with 22 new indictments that allege he sexually abused a young girl in Chesterfield and Brunswick counties. The former commander of the state police’s Information Technology Division surrendered to state po-
lice investigators at about 10 a.m. at the Chesterfield jail.

A plan to build a $100 million regional jail for Brunswick, Dinwiddie and Mecklenburg counties would alleviate the need for inmate space in all three localities dealing with overcrowded and inadequate local jails, local officials said. The regional jail, which has been in the planning stages for nearly four years and was originally estimated to cost $150.2 million, will help the counties save money and will make the jail system more efficient in all three jurisdictions.