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

DATE: MONDAY, May 17, 1993                   TAG: 9305170009
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`THE PLOT IS UP TO YOU,' HOLLINS GRADS TOLD

"You're the writer now," Smith said at the college's 151st commencement. "From now on, the plot is strictly up to you."

Smith, a 1967 graduate of Hollins, is a professor of English at North Carolina State University. She is known for her award-winning novels and short story collections about southern Appalachian life.

Smith said her early student writing assignments at Hollins were about things she knew little or nothing about - glamorous flight attendants in a Hawaiian setting.

A professor advised that she write about people and places she knew - like her native Grundy.

Smith balked at first, she said. All she wanted was "to get away from all that," she said.

Inspired by novelist Eudora Welty, Smith eventually came to write about what she knew - about "women sitting on a porch all afternoon drinking iced tea and talking endlessly about whether one of them did or did not have colitis."

Their story was, in a way, her story, Smith told graduates.

"The best I can wish for you - speaking as one writer to another - is that you dip your pen in love and history before you face that blank sheet of paper and that you write always with an open mind, a listening ear and a ready heart," Smith said.

Hollins' undergraduate class of 1993 was filled with stories.

Class valedictorian Xiaoqing Zhou's family nearly missed the commencement because of bureaucratic difficulties in leaving their native China. A Hollins Scholar and dean's list student, she was awarded the gold Faculty Award for Academic Excellence.

Elizabeth Webb Jelks, of South Carolina, devoted numerous volunteer hours to area community service agencies. She was awarded the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, given to a senior whose qualities evidence "a spirit of love and helpfulness to other men and women."

Sindhu Hirani, with an interest in politics and attachment to India, was chosen to address her fellow graduates. She offered advice to her classmates, including this piece of wisdom:

"Always, always, before you leave your house, before you leave your apartment, wherever you are in the world, always have with you, in your purse, in your back pocket, somewhere on your person, 20 copies of your resume," she said.

Hollins President Maggie O'Brien handed diplomas to 200 undergraduates and nearly 50 graduate students. One student tucked a chocolate kiss into O'Brien's hand.

"I'll keep this on my desk as a memento of the class of 1993," she said. How long it will remain there will depend on the strength of her "very significant chocolate loves," she said.

The college also awarded honorary doctorates to Lee Smith, community activist Mary Tyler Cheek of Richmond and former Roanoke Mayor Noel C. Taylor.