RESIDENTS URGE RECREATIONAL USE FOR VACANT GILES SCHOOL

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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 6, 1992                   TAG: 9202060218
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: STEVE KARK CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: PEARISBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
RESIDENTS URGE RECREATIONAL USE FOR VACANT GILES SCHOOL
The King Johnston School property will not be the location of the new Giles County Health Department offices as many in this town had feared.
Earlier this week, county Board of Supervisors Chairman Bobby Compton said the Health Department will move into a new building to be built near the county administrative offices in downtown Pearisburg.
At Tuesday's supervisors meeting, Compton said the board had determined that a new building would be cheaper than renovating an older one.
He estimated the cost of the new building at $350,000 to $400,000 and said construction could begin as early as this spring.
During a public hearing on the King Johnston school, which was vacated last year, town and county residents who attended said they wanted the building used for recreation.
Town resident France Whitt got the ball rolling by presenting a $500 check to the supervisors to apply toward renovating the property as a recreation center. He gave the money, he said, as his way of demonstrating that people who would use the center should support it.
Al Katz, president of the Downtown Merchants Association, said a recreation center would be another attraction inducing people to move to the county.
"We should put politics behind us and look at what's best for the people," he said.
Eddie Dowdy, who has lived in the county for 44 years, said closing the school property would be a "devastation" to the community. "Let's make this a state-of-the-art recreational facility."
Both Dennis Hamric and Bud Mutter of the Pearisburg Chamber of Commerce threw their support behind the recreation center idea.
"The chamber views the center as an opportunity for Giles County because it is one of the things that could pull the county together," Hamric said.
Mutter thought it might "bring more folks to this area."
Town Recreation Director W.R. Johnston, a lifetime resident, said he has been contacted by a number of town residents concerned about how the property will be used.
He said these conversations have led him to recommend that the property be turned over to the town and that any satisfactory decision on its use should include "a provision for the town to retain scheduling authority."
Ray Piedt of the Recreational Association of Celco Employees said his group was interested in buying the school property. He said it would be willing to work out some kind of joint venture with the town.
Supervisors Chairman Compton said the board would make its decision after it studies a final report from a Virginia Tech architectural group studying possible uses for the property.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB