Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992 TAG: 9203050164
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
But then, she's probably earned that right.
She's been researching William Addison Caldwell, Virginia Tech's first student, for months.
"No one knew he was called Add, they just called him `William,' " said Cox, an information officer for Tech's College of Architecture and Urban Studies.
But this story isn't about Caldwell, at least not really. It's more about Cox, the woman who went looking for him in the archives of the Newman Library, in the letters of his friends and relatives, in the stories of his nephew and namesake, who lives in Radford.
As a rule, Cox cottons to British literature.
But for the past few months, she's been into mysteries - particularly, this one.
You see, there is no official document that says Caldwell really was the first student to register at the what was then Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College. But there is enough proof in other documents - letters, memos and memories - to make the case.
Cox admits she was a little obsessed when it came to solving this one.
"I tracked down everything I could find," she said. "I just became sort of consumed by this - by wanting to find out all I could about him."
Why?
"It's important," she said. "It's important for the university to know about him. It's important for Tech's history."
There was a time, she said, when all officials knew about Caldwell was that he had registered at Tech, and that at one time he had been a salesman for a molasses firm.
"That was about it," she said.
But she's learned more.
Cox knows that Tech's first student walked to Blacksburg from his homeplace in Craig County: 28 miles, over two mountains, by her odometer.
"Of course," she said after talking to a Craig County historian, "he would have known shortcuts."
Cox knows he walked to Tech because she talked to Katherine Mendez, 90. And Katherine Mendez's father had walked with him.
"I tracked down everything I could find," Cox said. "I read histories and compilations and obituaries. I've driven people nuts with this stuff. I've gone up to a lot of people and said, `I've got something you want to see.' "
She also has befriended Add's namesake in Radford, and they have talked of how Tech used to be.
She has stood on the porch of Add's old homeplace. She has taken pictures of that land.
And she has written about Tech's first student, as an assignment for Tech's alumni magazine. But she also wrote it, she said, because she just wants people to know about him.
by CNB