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

DATE: SUNDAY, March 7, 1993                   TAG: 9303050027
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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WHY NOT YOM KIPPUR IN SCHOOL CALENDAR?

I never understood why the names Hanukkah and Passover could not have been added to the Montgomery County School Board calendar, thus having a Hanukkah-Christmas vacation and an Easter-Passover break.

There is one day that must be allowed as a religious day and that is Yom Kippur for the Jewish children. This is the Day of Atonement with a 24-hour fast. I would ask how [former School Board Chairman] Daniel Schneck would keep this day off the school calendar?

The Feb. 21 New River Current had a letter from Robert H. Miller, a retired electrical engineering professor, and the Roanoke Times & World-News editorial page had a letter from Robert L. Whitelaw, professor emeritus of mechanical and nuclear engineering at Virginia Tech. I want to thank them for speaking for believers and thank God that men of science will speak out.

As a railroad maintenance-of-way worker, I am limited in speaking to anyone, particularly such organizations as school boards. I therefore welcome the learned men to speak for me. I feel that John LeDoux, another professor at Virginia Tech, will speak forcefully for religious teaching in the public schools.

I would hope that more men such as Miller, Whitelaw and LeDoux would speak out that God is alive and well. Virginia Tech, Radford University and New River Community [College] could help us all in the New River Valley in the fight for morality in a student's life.\ Marshall A. Aburn\ Narrows

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