Intrepid business blogger Peter Galuszka (he writes the "Corner Office" blog on the BNet Business Network) tried to attend the annual meeting earlier today of the Massey Energy Company but was denied admittance.

The event, held at the Jefferson Hotel, promised to be controversial. CEO Donald L. Blankenship is known for his combative style and his involvement in West Virginia politics, while the AFL-CIO was pushing a shareholder resolution requiring the company to file seminannual reports on how decisions about political contributions are made and who makes them. Meanwhile, another resolution called for Massey, the fourth largest coal producer in the country, to reveal more about its greenhouse gas emissions.

It promised to be rollicking good fun, but investor relations specialist Roger Henrickson told Galuszka that letting in "unfavorable" media might lead to disruptions. Perhaps he would care to observe the meeting by webcast. Galuszka, who watched the bloody attempted putsch against Boris Yeltsin unfold in 1993 outside his office when running the Moscow bureau for BusinessWeek magazine, found such a wimpy option unappealing. But, then, he's not as young and adventuresome as he once was.

"Looking around the hotel corridors with their blue-suited policemen and strapping young men in suits with wires coming out of their ears," Galuszka writes, "I decided to retreat."

Galuszka, who lives in Chesterfield County, blogged an account of his close encounter with Massey Energy anyway. You can read it at "Massey Energy: The CEO as Tough Guy."