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

DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990                   TAG: 9005090066
SECTION: DISCOVER THE NEW RIVER VALLEY                    PAGE: DIS/NRV8   EDITION: NEW RIVER 
SOURCE: JUDITH SCHWAB SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Short

RADFORD IS A GREAT PLACE TO RAISE FAMILY, COUPLE SAYS

Radford University brought Ray and Jackie Spaulding to the New River Valley in 1966 when Ray accepted a teaching position in the mathematics department.

Now, 24 years later, Jackie Spaulding sometimes considers moving when her commute to Wythe County, where she is a high school guidance counselor, seems particularly long.

But, she just can't seem to find a better deal than the New River Valley.

"I think the New River Valley is great," shouts Ray, whose commute is just spittin' distance from home.

"With or without your wife - right?" Jackie calls after him as he heads for his office.

"I don't really want to move," Jackie Spaulding said. "The town [Radford] has been good to us, both our kids have been well prepared for college."

Spaulding sees Radford as a great place to raise a family.

"When your kid learns to drive, you don't sit home and shudder," she said. But she can remember when there were a few hardships to go along with that small-town ambiance.

When she was pregnant with her first child in 1968, "There was nowhere in town to buy maternity clothes. I had to go to Roanoke or sew my own and I couldn't sew."

And there were no fast-food restaurants, either.

Now she doesn't need maternity clothes, and there's all the fast food she can eat.

She thinks she'll stay.

by CNB