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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 16, 1990                   TAG: 9005160262
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Southwest bureau
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE                                LENGTH: Short

WYTHE COLLEGE CONFERS FIRST HONORARY DEGREES

Wytheville Community College honored three men Tuesday night instrumental in its creation with its first conferrals of honorary associate degrees in humane letters, a degree recently approved by the state community colleges board.

Retired circuit Judge R. William Arthur, former state Sen. D. Woodrow Bird and Robert Eley Johnson, one of the most persistent supporters of a two-year college here in the 1960s, were named to receive the degrees at the college's 23rd commencement program.

President William Snyder made the awards.

Johnson was chairman of the steering committee pushing for a Virginia Tech branch college in the Wytheville area. Snyder said he was a "circuit rider" for the college after its establishment, developing citizen support in its service area.

Bird, who was an adviser to that first steering committee, introduced and supported an enabling bill to establish and fund the college which opened in 1963. Arthur, also an adviser, was one of those presenting the steering committee report to the State Council of Higher Education which approved the Wytheville site. He was chairman of its first board after it entered the state community college system in 1967.

Arthur, although retired, was unable to attend the program because he had been called on to preside at a case in Roanoke.

by CNB