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

DATE: MONDAY, February 8, 1993                   TAG: 9302080082
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Staff report
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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GOVERNOR HONORING CHAMPION

Arthur Ashe, born 49 years ago into a Richmond that treated him and other blacks as second-class citizens, will be honored in death Tuesday and Wednesday with what amounts to a state funeral.

Gov. Douglas Wilder and Ashe's family announced Sunday that Ashe's body will lie in state from 5-9 p.m. Tuesday in the Executive Mansion. A funeral service is scheduled for Wednesday at 1 p.m. at the Arthur Ashe Center, an indoor sports complex not far from where young Ashe began playing tennis in the 1940s.

Ashe is to be buried after that service in the city's Woodlawn Cemetery, where his mother is interred.

The tennis legend, who gained international respect with his skill on the court and his struggles for human rights and against AIDS, died of pneumonia Saturday in New York.

Wilder, who ordered state flags lowered to half-staff until the burial, dates his friendship with Ashe to the days when, as a teen-ager, he and other friends would run 5-year-old Arthur off the courts at Richmond's Brook Park.

That was one of the few places blacks in Richmond could play tennis then. Ashe's father eventually sent him to Lynchburg to learn the game under the tutelage of Dr. Walter Johnson, a general practitioner whose home was a haven for young black tennis hopefuls.

Ashe had not lived in Richmond since going to UCLA in the early 1960s but much of his family remains in the area and he had been a regular visitor in recent years. His most recent trip was last fall, when he announced plans for a hall of fame for black athletes to be built in the city.

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