Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 30, 1993 TAG: 9305300037
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Jimmy Thacker, a business associate, said Edmonds and a friend, Doug Baker, went to the beach late Friday to scout property in which Edmonds might invest.
Edmonds suffered a massive heart attack in his hotel room and died shortly afterward at Virginia Beach General Hospital.
Thacker and Edmonds were associated in a venture called CareQuest, a health information service, and more recently in Information Products Co., a mail order business.
Up to the time of his death, Edmonds still wrote occasional columns for the Roanoke Times & World-News.
The most recent, in which he poked fun at the Roanoke Valley's efforts to achieve economic development by becoming a tourist mecca, appeared just two weeks ago today.
"The train is leaving the station," Edmonds wrote.
"Close your eyes. Pick a vision. Get on board.
"We're headed for the future, and our ticket is to prosperity in the travel industry.
" . . . Promoting Roanoke as a travel attraction will prompt an antitrust suit by Sominex. If that doesn't deter us, Truth in Advertising legislation will.
" . . . Perhaps it is the synergism between tourism promotion and politics that keeps [the idea] alive. The travel industry is based on getting away from it all. City government is based on getting away with all you can.
"We've extended that to bring it all back, enhanced by the conceit that we're interesting. Or, at least, once were.
" . . . Trains always run through our dreams for Roanoke. It's genetic.
"We are children of a railroad town. With a caboose mentality.
"Riding the caboose, you can't see where you're going.
"Only where you've been," Edmonds concluded.
Howard Packett, who worked with Edmonds for more than 30 years in the newspaper and advertising businesses, said Edmonds was the premier advertising man in Virginia in the 1960s.
In that era, Packett said, Edmonds was the most creative person in the advertising industry throughout the state.
He was also one of the first people to win the silver medal of the Roanoke Valley Advertising Federation for contributions to the industry.
E. Cabell Brand, who persuaed Edmonds to quit newspapers for advertising, called Edmonds "the most creative person I ever knew - a marvelous man." Brand hired Edmonds at their first meeting for the in-house agency of the old Ortho-Vent Shoe Co.
Edmonds later became president of the agency that had various names over the years but became Brand-Edmonds & Packett.
After the agency became independent of the shoe company, it was known as the Edmonds-Packett Group for many years, even after Edmonds left to pursue other interests.
Forrest Landon, executive editor of the Roanoke Times & World-News, recalled that Edmonds wrote a column called "File 13" from about 1955 until he entered the advertising business in 1960.
Landon said File 13 poked fun at crazy things in the community and at politicians "without ever being mean. . . . He'd go for the mark and be right on target always."
Edmonds had an intense interest in public affairs, Landon said, and "no patience at all with phony politicians. He'd deflate them with that typewriter of his."
Edmonds was born in Pulaski County and was raised in Wytheville. He joined the staff of the Roanoke Times in 1955 after his graduation from Washington and Lee University.
He is survived by seven sisters.
Oakey's Funeral Home, Roanoke, is handling arrangements.
by CNB