
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 8, 1990                   TAG: 9004110465
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

NUCLEAR TESTING PIONEER DIES AT 82

Edmund T "Piggy" Morris, a Roanoke native who played a part in a pioneering atomic energy endeavor of Westinghouse Electric Corp., died Friday. He was 82.

In 1957, Morris managed construction of the first industry-owned nuclear materials testing reactor at Waltz Mill, Pa., near Pittsburgh.

The reactor was designed to test nuclear materials under conditions similar to those in a power reactor.

Charles H. Weaver, Westinghouse vice president in charge of atomic power activities at the time, likened the reactor to the "first word of the first sentence of the first page of the nuclear story."

Morris, who attended Roanoke public schools, spent more than 30 years with Westinghouse after receiving a master's degree in 1928 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He had graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1926 with a degree in electrical engineering.

He received a distinguished service award from VMI and was president of the VMI foundation from 1967 to 1979.

In 1963, he was named executive manager of the Roanoke Industrial Center and was later elected president of the Roanoke Valley Redevelopment Corp.

Funeral services will be conducted at 11 a.m. Monday at St. John's Episcopal Church by the Rev. Clay Turner. Burial will be in Evergreen Burial Park.

by CNB