Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 19, 1993 TAG: 9312170076
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ELIZABETH OBENSHAIN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Virginia Tech, after spending four years barely on speaking terms with the Wilder administration, found out it is going to have a best friend at the state capital beginning in January.
When Bev Sgro, Tech's dean of student affairs, becomes secretary of the Department of Education she will be a familiar face and a friendly ear in the Allen administration at a time when higher education feels it needs friends in high places.
And the halls of the General Assembly may be more welcoming, too, because Virginia Tech also has a new president, a man respected both by his academic peers and by the state's legislative and corporate leaders.
Paul Torgersen's early appointment by the Tech Board of Visitors was one of those rare decisions that seemed to hit the right note with everyone. Here is a nationally respected engineer, a man with the loyalty to Tech and the personal grace to continue to serve the university despite narrowly losing the presidential nod five years ago.
It's probably the best Christmas present Virginia Tech could receive . . . a new president who is off and running, who already has a rapport with the administrators and legislators who will make the budget calls on higher education next year.
On a more personal scale, too, it will be a good Christmas for more than 1,200 of Montgomery County's poorest families.
Somehow, despite a holiday schedule as frantic as yours and mine, a group of volunteers creates an entire department store each December that over three days gives thousands of dollars in new toys, clothes, household goods and boxes of food to those trying to make it on minimum-wage paychecks, Social Security or welfare.
In a day when few believe in miracles, they create a miracle in a deserted warehouse out of their own compassion and hard work - and the generosity of the entire county.
The Christmas Store's mission is not just to the needy, it's also to the volunteers - it makes it possible for many in this community to give to others.
One night at the store, half the county seemed to be there. Tech administrators, local business owners, elementary school teachers, homemakers, self-employed workers were guiding families through the store's gift departments or restocking shelves with Barney dinosaurs or stuffing boxes with potatoes, fresh oranges and ham for a Christmas dinner.
The store also teaches children how to give. Entire schools have coat drives, food drives, penny collections. Children write essays about the store's special mission.
But the best point in this story is that some of the families who come for a helping hand in tough times are back the next year as volunteers. Back on their feet, they return to share that help with others.
There are other Christmas efforts around the valley - The Angel Tree, the new Radford Elf Shelf modeled on the Christmas Store, the Salvation Army's food drives.
And there are individual efforts, too, such as Shanna Letner's whose indignation at the few gifts donated to a local toy drive prompted her to organize her fellow Cracker Barrel employees to adopt a family for Christmas. In the end, the restaurant's employees gave a truckload of wrapped presents - toys for 43 children.
Why do a few always make the time to help while others of us are too busy with our own frenzied shopping and errands to care?
Whatever the reason, whatever their secret, I'm grateful for it.
Kindness to strangers is perhaps the purest expression of the Christmas spirit.
Elizabeth Obenshain is editor of the New River Valley bureau of the Roanoke Times & World-News.
by CNB