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

DATE: THURSDAY, January 7, 1993                   TAG: 9301070363
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: W-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Frances Stebbins Staff
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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RELIGION BRIEFS

A GOSPEL MUSIC FESTIVAL, which its promoter hopes will attract 7,000 people, is scheduled July 23 and 24 in Elmwood Park. Hugh Mayo, a member of High Street Baptist Church, said the event will be a local expression of a national Gospel Music Day proclaimed five years ago by then-President Ronald Reagan.

Mayo, who said he is promoting the festival as an individual and not as a High Street project, said activities will run from 8 a.m. to sundown and are open to all church music groups on an interfaith and interracial basis. It will be free.

Church music leaders wanting more information about the festival may write to Mayo at 2033 Colgate St., Apt. A, Roanoke, 24012.

\ THE REV. NELSON HARRIS, pastor of Ridgewood Baptist Church, has been re-elected to a second one-year term as president of the Roanoke Valley Baptist Ministers' Conference. The Rev. Billy White of Tabernacle Church in Salem was renamed vice president. The conference represents the staff members of the 70 Southern Baptist congregations in the Roanoke metro area.

\ ROBERT and AMY RUMMAGE, members of Emmanuel Wesleyan Church, are serving as education missionaries in Bratislava, Slovakia, in the Wesleyan Gospel Corp program. They are teaching English to 130 children and adults in several small groups. They were trained for this ministry in Hawaii.

Deadline for religion briefs for Neighbors is Thursday. Material must be delivered to Neighbors Religion Briefs, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010, by noon in order to run in the following Thursday edition.

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