Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 7, 1991 TAG: 9104070153
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER/ SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: INDEPENDENCE LENGTH: Medium
"They actually had the audacity to think that they could build and run an FM radio station," the commission's Hilda Gay Legg told the Mount Rogers Planning District Commission at its annual spring meeting Thursday night.
She admitted that some skeptical eyebrows were raised in October when the delegation from Ivanhoe presented its plan to commission officials. But the youngsters ended up getting a $22,294 planning grant, she said, "and it's very much within the realm of possibility that there will be a radio station operating next year."
Some of those young people, 13 to 17 years old, were attending the dinner/meeting at which Legg spoke, along with Maxine Waller, president of the Ivanhoe Civic League; Dawn Sutphin, Ivanhoe youth director; and Judy Lorimer, assistant director.
Ivanhoe, a community straddling the line dividing Wythe and Carroll counties, has become known in recent years as a place where people are finding innovative ways to improve their locality.
The plan for a non-commercial FM station is just one of those ways. Others include an Ivanhoe branch of Wytheville Community College, a history book on Ivanhoe recounting its boom days and revival efforts since its industries closed, development of a recreational park where a weeklong Ivanhoe Jubilee is held each summer, and community improvement projects that draw students from distant colleges and universities to Ivanhoe for volunteer work.
Legg said the Ivanhoe group is typical of "the young people who are going to take us into the next century, where there might not be the federal funding or there might not be an ARC."
She noted that President Bush has requested $100 million for the Appalachian Regional Commission this year. "Whenever I hear anyone criticizing the Bush administration for not being involved in domestic programs, I can tell you from personal experience that we in ARC are," she said.
But she had a word of caution.
"We are going to have to change in Appalachia. We're going to have to look at things like cooperative purchasing. . . . We're going to have to utilize the circuit-rider approach," she said.
And the commission is going to have to be more innovative, doing more pushing of flexible technology in manufacturing, using telecommunications instead of highways and software instead of hardware, she said.
Telecommunications can link remote rural areas for education and work training, she said. Planners not only must continue to ignore county lines in developing cooperative programs, she said, but state lines as well.
"Folks, the world is changing, and so, too, must Appalachia change to meet those needs," she said.
by CNB