BENTLEY HITE, FORMER DELEGATE AND PROSECUTOR, DEAD AT 91

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 19, 1992                   TAG: 9202190159
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
BENTLEY HITE, FORMER DELEGATE AND PROSECUTOR, DEAD AT 91
Bentley Hite, a lawyer in Christiansburg for 62 years before he retired in 1990, died at his home Tuesday afternoon. He was 91.
Soon after establishing his law practice in Christiansburg in 1928, Hite entered politics. He filled the unexpired term of a member of the House of Delegates who had died in office.
One of only five Republican members in the House, Hite tired of fighting with a Democratic legislature and decided to give local politics a try. He was elected commonwealth's attorney in 1934 and 1938 but joined the Navy before the end of his second term.
After World War II, Hite became Republican chairman for the 6th District, of which Montgomery was part at the time, and held that post for eight years.
He also served two more terms in the House of Delegates and, along with such GOP legislators as Ted Dalton and Richard Poff, helped build up the party.
Hite appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case in which the poll tax was ruled unconstitutional. The tax was one of the means that Democrats had used to maintain control.
"Harry Byrd and Carter Glass [powerful Democratic politicians] ran Virginia like they owned it," Hite once recalled.
In October 1991, the Montgomery County Republican Party honored Hite at its monthly luncheon. If Hite were injured, "he would bleed Republican," Libby Beamer, a GOP activist, said then.
Hite was a native of Graysontown in Montgomery County. He attended Roanoke College, where he played football, and was a 1928 graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, where he was named to the Law Review.
Samuel Tollison, president of the First National Bank of Christiansburg - on whose board Hite had served since 1936, once described him as a "gentleman from the old school."
When the Montgomery County Bar Association honored Hite in 1988, it called him "a true patriot in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson with the same compassion for people as the country lawyer known as Abe Lincoln."
One of the great loves of Hite's life was for the United States Navy. He had been disappointed when World War I ended before he could get into it, but when World War II arrived he set aside his law career and joined the Navy.
A deck commander on a destroyer and staff officer of the Seventh Fleet, he was awarded several medals for distinguished service and valor. He helped escort Gen. Douglas MacArthur back to the Phillipines.
Between 1923 and 1925, before he entered law school, Hite served as principals of high schools at Bowling Green and Willis.
Between 1928 and 1929, Hite taught government and history at Christiansburg High School and coached the football team to a championship.
Hite ended a long bachelorhood in 1951 when he married Cassandra Ward Harman. They had two children and two grandchildren.
Hite was a general practicioner of law who was involved in community affairs. He helped start the Christiansburg-Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce and taught Sunday school.
He was the chamber's distinguished citizen in 1982 and received Roanoke College's distinguished service award in 1986.
He described himself as "just an old country lawyer in a country town . . . trying to get along."
The funeral will be Friday at 2 p.m. at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Christiansburg. Burial, with military rites, will follow in Sunset Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, the family in accordance with Hite's wishes, requests that memorials be sent to the Shriner's Crippled Children's Hospital, 950 W. Faris Road, Greenville, S.C. 29605, or to the Christiansburg Rescue Squad, P.O. Box 176, Christiansburg, Va. 24073.
Friends may call anytime Thursday at the Richardson-Horne Funeral Home and the family will receive friends there from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m. Thursday.
A Masonic service will be conducted in the Richardson-Horne Chapel at 8 p.m. Thursday by McDaniel Lodge No. 86 AF & AM. The public is welcome.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB