Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 14, 1993 TAG: 9305140153
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CAROLYN CLICK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Thursday night, Total Action Against Poverty honored him for his lengthy community service with the Second Annual Noel C. Taylor Distinguished Humanitarian Award.
"I think that one-on-one working with people is the best way to reach them," said Hamlar, 71, co-founder of the Hamlar-Curtis Funeral Home.
"Usually the things I do reflect not something that large, but just something that makes an everlasting impression or an everlasting contribution."
Hamlar's contributions are dotted throughout his native Roanoke Valley.
As he worked to build up his business in the 1950s and 1960s, he worked with others in the community to end segregation and bring on peaceful integration.
Recognizing a need for blacks to become a force in the political process, he helped persuade Taylor, the city's retired mayor for whom the award is named, to make his first bid for office. Hamlar served as Taylor's first campaign manager.
And because of his interest in education, he established funds at both Roanoke College and Virginia Western Community College to aid minority students. Those scholarships are given in honor of his late wife, Constance Johnson Hamlar.
"I live by the code that: `Don't expect other people to do it,' " said Hamlar. "If you want change, if you want to better yourself, you just have to go out and do it."
Hamlar said he is concerned by the hopelessness of the poorest in American society, but said he continually exhorts them that hard work eventually will reap awards.
"I learned that from my childhood," said Hamlar.
Hamlar's father worked on the railroad as a brakeman and never had a promotion in his life until the union of black railroad workers took its grievance all the way to the Supreme Court.
His father finally got that long awaited promotion to conductor - three months before his retirement.
"If you keep working hard enough, we will make changes," he said.
Hamlar graduated from Virginia State University and the Gupton-Jones School of Mortuary Science in Atlanta.
A former Roanoke School Board member, Hamlar has served on community boards including those at Roanoke College, Virginia Western Community College, the Science Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, Virginia's Recreational Facilities Authority, the Roanoke Ballet and the United Negro College Fund.
He has also been a member of the Henry Street Revival Committee, Design '85 Steering Committee, and the State Advisory Council of the Small Business Administration. He is a life member of the NAACP.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.