Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 31, 1990 TAG: 9006080699
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Most are staying in colleges around here," said classmate Rhonda Dean.
"A lot will stay in Virginia" but not necessarily in Roanoke, Robin Tate agreed.
Vance, Dean and Tate were among eight graduating seniors who gathered on a recent morning to discuss job opportunities in the valley.
This year's class will have about 400 graduates, said guidance counselor Terry Divers; 60 percent will go to college, with 40 percent going to in-state schools and the rest out of Virginia.
"It's jobs vs. good jobs," Marshall Lauck explained. "To keep people here you should have a career, as opposed to just a job."
"There are plenty of jobs in the food-service industry," said Divers, but most students "don't want to settle for that."
Dean is the only one of the eight students interviewed who is definitely staying in Roanoke. She is enrolled in an advanced marketing class and works for a company that will keep her on after graduation, while she takes more classes at Virginia Western Community College.
"I never thought about leaving home to go to college," she said. "I'm real close to my family. There is plenty I can do to support myself so I wouldn't have to move away."
Lauck and Brian Stoneburner are headed for the military. Stoneburner is enrolled in an ROTC program and plans to go to college and join the Air Force. Lauck will study aerospace engineering after he enlists in the Navy.
Their reasons for leaving the Roanoke area are obvious: "There's not a naval base here," Lauck said.
Stoneburner chose the military because friends and relatives have been in the service and it seemed like a good opportunity, he said. Lauck cited education and job security as his reasons for joining up.
Sonoko Konishi, a Japanese exchange student, will study fine arts or computer graphics at the Art Institute in Chicago.
Originally from Tokyo, one of the world's most heavily populated cities, Konishi said she enjoyed the slow pace of life in Roanoke for the first two years she spent here, but now she is ready to get out. She prefers a big-city lifestyle and thinks opportunities for artists are very limited in the Roanoke Valley.
Tate will attend James Madison University and study political science as part of her pre-law course. She hopes to become a lawyer and said she would like to practice in the Roanoke Valley someday.
She is not worried about the current glut of lawyers, she said. "There's a difference between being a lawyer and being a good lawyer."
Vance will go to Duke University to study biology. "I don't know what I plan on doing," she said, but she is thinking of a career in medicine. Like Tate, she would like to work in the Roanoke area.
"This valley is is a good place for [the medical field]," she said. With the impending merger of Community and Roanoke Memorial Hospitals, "things are growing" and there might be some very good opportunities here in the next four years, she said.
Edwin Franklin will attend the University of Southern California to study aerospace engineering. "I'm definitely not coming back to work in the Roanoke Valley," he said. "What I'm going to do is not here."
Danny Felty plans to study in Virginia. He will major in mechanical engineering at Virginia Military Institute.
When asked if he would work in Roanoke after graduation, he said: "I'd really like to."
Most of the students interviewed felt that the valley needs to grow to generate more jobs. "But it shouldn't get too big," Lauck said. He would like to see more industries such as International Telephone and Telegraph here.
Many of them believe that the proposed consolidation of Roanoke and Roanoke County will encourage the needed growth.
Felty, who is Student Government Association president, has been active in the consolidation campaign and has attended several informational meetings. Many students, he said, are apathetic about the issue, but the people he has talked to, both in the county and the city, seem to think it will be a good thing for them and for the valley.
Dean said she thinks enrolling in marketing and cooperative education programs will help students find careers. "A lot of employers want COE or marketing students" who already have work experience.
None of the students had anything really bad to say about Roanoke.
"I like the Roanoke Valley, the mountains, the people," Felty said.
Konishi, who appeared to have the distant future in mind, said: "It's very nice to come back to when you're retired."
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on June 7, 1990\ Because of a reporter's error in a May 31 Neighbors story about the Patrick Henry High School graduating class, senior Marshall Lauck's post-graduation plans were listed incorrectly. He will enter the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., in the fall.
Memo: CORRECTION