Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 14, 1990 TAG: 9007140118
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Highways undreamed of then were about to fill up with rush-hour traffic Friday when Willard Scott gave his first weather report as he brought the "Today" show back to the mountain.
Before the morning was very old, Scott had given the Miss Virginia pageant and its 30 contestants nationwide exposure.
When the late Dave Garroway brought the show to Roanoke for two days in May of 1958, he did not have 30 pretty women - 31 including the current Miss Virginia - to work with.
Scott did. And he is a man who knows how to make the most of a situation like that.
The current Miss Virginia, Tami Elliott of Newport News, was there and got on nationwide television talking to Scott.
"Eat your heart out, Gumble," Scott said to Bryant Gumble, a "Today" show host in New York, as the camera caught the 30 contestants, who didn't appear grumpy despite the hour.
Scott went on the air with the Mill Mountain Zoo's new emu and with a red-tailed hawk and a screech owl. "I thought the only place we found emus was in the crossword puzzle," Scott said.
It was a great day for T-shirts, which are Scott's favorite devices.
In the crowd, for example, was a nine-member delegation of the Great Bridge United Methodist Church Youth Fellowship in Tidewater Virginia. Cut to initials, this makes a great T-shirt legend.
Members said they are in this part of the state painting and renovating a church service center in Franklin County.
About 200 people were on the mountain before 7 a.m. - among them Linda Phillippi of Wytheville, who also made an early morning drive when Scott visited Roanoke in 1987.
It was time, Phillippi said, for "a Willard fix."
Scott, who works a crowd very well, went among his early morning fans signing autographs. He mugged for cameras and hugged anybody who was willing.
by CNB