ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 1, 1997 TAG: 9702030101
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
The Salem-Roanoke Baseball Hall of Fame will be growing in more ways than one.
At the sixth annual Hot Stove induction banquet Sunday night at the Salem Civic Center, the local Hall of Fame will announce its intention to build a facility to house the plaques and memorabilia that have hung in the Salem Civic Center foyer since the shrine was established.
Hall of Fame president Posey Oyler, a longtime American Legion Post 3 coach and administrator and one of this year's inductees, said the Hall's 11-man board will meet soon after Sunday's dinner to determine how the non-profit corporation will raise funds for the Hall, of which a proposed design has been drawn by architect Robert Fry of Kinsey Shane & Associates.
That is the Salem firm that designed the city's Memorial Baseball Stadium, the adjacent Salem Avalanche offices and the Salem football stadium. The design is similar to the baseball park and Carolina League team offices, and Oyler said the preliminary plan is to have the Hall of Fame located on property adjacent to those.
``We'll be working with Salem City Council on the exact site,'' Oyler said. ``We're probably going to need a minimum in the $250,000 range to build and furnish the Hall of Fame. There has been a lot of interest in the Hall of Fame, and we want to do it right.''
Oyler said the Hall's board hopes to have a fund-raising plan in place within 60 days. That would coincide with the opening of the baseball season. The current design, which will be displayed at the banquet, calls for a building of at least 1,600 square feet.
He said the need to proceed on the project is obvious to anyone who has seen the current display in the civic center lobby.
``We're out of space in the two display cases at the civic center,'' Oyler said. ``The civic center and [manager] Carey Harveycutter have been great to us and we appreciate it. They've worked with us from Day One. We need more space. We don't have room for any more plaques, and we have uniforms and other items from inductees we want to display.''
The five 1997 inductees - Oyler, Shannon Hardwick, Ed Ott, Alvin Hall and Steve Demeter - bring the Hall's roster to 29. The banquet, at which former major league outfielder Jay Johnstone will speak, has had a record ticket sale of 660.
Besides its own induction ceremony, the Hall of Fame each summer honors an area high school player of the year with the Ray Bellamy Memorial Award.
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: ROBERT FRY KINSEY SHANE & ASSOCIATES. The design forby CNBthe proposed Salem-Roanoke Baseball Hall of Fame will resemble that
of Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium and the adjacent Salem Avalanche
offices. Organizers hope to have a fund-raising plan in place within
60 days. color.