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

DATE: MONDAY, October 11, 1993                   TAG: 9310110085
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FITZPATRICK'S GOLDEN PARACHUTE

Roanoke Vice Mayor Beverly Fitzpatrick didn't get a golden parachute when he lost his bank job this summer as Dominion Fitzpatrick turned into First Union.

So his friends gave him one instead.

Fitzpatrick was summoned to the Virginia Museum of Transportation - one of his favorite causes - to deal with some unspecified "emergency."

When he got there, he found a party in his honor in progress.

One of the gifts: a gold backpack, the closest his friends could come to an actual parachute.

No pipe dream

Roanoke may soon have a pipe bridge.

The enclosed bridge would transport flour over Jefferson Street at Roanoke City Mills, near Victory Stadium.

As part of a major renovation of the mills' property, the company plans to erect a building for loading flour on the west side of Jefferson Street.

The flour would be piped from the mill on the east side of the street to new storage tanks on the west side.

The bridge also would improve pedestrian safety; it would be built so mill employees could use it to cross Jefferson Street over vehicle traffic.

The bridge needs city approval. As part of the process, the city must seek bids on leasing the "air rights" over Jefferson Street. The company will submit its bid after the requirements for legal advertisement are met.

Filling Tech's plate

Those 2,250 Virginia Tech license tags fastened to cars in the Old Dominion are driving funds to the school.

Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles recently transferred $15,485 to the school's general scholarship fund for the sales of license plates emblazoned with the university's name and symbol.

At $15 a plate, Tech's participation in the College Plate program has brought it close to $50,000 since it began three years ago.

We'd love to hire you, but . . .

The girl who put the handbill on the bulletin board at the Hollins branch of the Roanoke County library showed laudable initiative.

But she may have made an unfortunate choice of words.

"Calling all vets," she wrote in colored pencil, "I'm 12 years old. I love animals to death . . . I would love to work in vet's office or at dog pound."

by CNB