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

DATE: THURSDAY, January 7, 1993                   TAG: 9301070375
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: S-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY FRANCES STEBBINS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

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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.

\ MORE THAN 88,300 PENNIES were collected by members of Greene Memorial United Methodist Church in 1992 for expenses associated with transporting commercially useless potatoes from growers to regional food banks. The church is one of many throughout Virginia that cooperates in the on-going project of the Society of St. Andrew based in Bedford County. Greene Memorial members exceeded their goal of giving enough pennies to form a mile.

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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