THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 9, 1997 TAG: 9701090007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 57 lines
Virginia Beach Del. Leo C. Wardrup Jr. has requested state legislation that would change the name of Norfolk International Airport to ``Hampton Roads International Airport.'' No doubt he isn't the only resident who wonders why the busiest airport in Hampton Roads doesn't promote the region in its name. We believe it should.
History explains the present name, as does Norfolk's fame. Responding to Norfolk's request, the General Assembly granted the city permission in the 1940s to create an airport authority. Norfolk City Council set up the authority, which is empowered to issue revenue bonds for improvements, named a board of commissioners and christened the facility ``Norfolk Municipal Airport.''
City Council renamed it ``Norfolk Regional Airport'' in 1970 and changed that to ``Norfolk International Airport'' six years later.
Because the airport was a child of Norfolk's when Virginia Beach was a small town along the Oceanfront, Suffolk a city of 5,000 and Chesapeake non-existent, Norfolk clearly belonged in its name. And Norfolk's high name recognition with most Americans and many foreigners also argued for continuing to identify the airport with the city.
A hybrid name - Norfolk/Hampton Roads International Airport - would be unwieldy, but Norfolk might go along with it. And ``Norfolk/Hampton Roads'' flashing on airport video bulletin boards around the globe could serve an educational function by connecting a well-known city name with the name the region has chosen for itself.
``Hampton Roads'' is the only politically acceptable designation for the region. ``The Norfolk Area'' wouldn't win regional backing for economic-development initiatives. Nor would ``the Virginia Beach Area.'' That's the reality.
``Hampton Roads'' - a name known to shippers and sailors world wide - has gained the assent of the region's localities. Forward Hampton Roads (though its focus is South Hampton Roads), the Hampton Roads Partnership and the region's newspapers, television and radio stations all promote ``Hampton Roads.'' The region's cities increasingly identify themselves as Hampton Roads communities.
And Forward Hampton Roads - the economic-development arm of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce - is now revving up for a sustained campaign to tell corporate America that ``Hampton Roads'' is a great place in which to live, work, learn, play and prosper and to link Hampton Roads in the public mind with its component localities. If the Hampton Roads Rhinos take to the ice in Norfolk, ``Hampton Roads'' will get even more press - far and wide.
Delegate Wardrup's effort may go nowhere. It may not be the appropriate way to go about renaming the airport. Norfolk, for understandable reasons, may object to having the name of the airport it sponsors altered by others. And Wardrup's fellow legislators may see in their colleague's proposal a threat to their own localities' prerogatives and thus shy from it.
But despite all these caveats, Norfolk International Airport should become Hampton Roads International Airport. Whatever its fate, the Wardrup initiative places the issue on the regional agenda.