Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 22, 1993 TAG: 9312180021
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But it's that 1 percent that keeps on giving, periodically draining off the liquid that pumps through their own hearts so that others can live, the American Red Cross says.
And it's that 1 percent - women, teenagers and men like E.G. "Feets" Willard, Ken Clevenger and John Roller - that mean so much to Bloodmobile drives in the New River Valley and elsewhere, especially when holidays roll around.
There may be others, but if so, Red Cross officials in Roanoke and Montgomery County couldn't recall who in the New River Valley has donated more blood over the years than these three men.
"The folks that we count on are the regulars," says Debbie Ingram, executive secretary for the Montgomery chapter of the Red Cross. "There are a number of people who make it their business to know when the Bloodmobile is.
"A lot of the ones who had the big gallon pins started when they were in the military. It was mandatory," she said.
Mandatory, because blood was being spilled on the ground, on beaches and in the water, every day. For Willard, nicknamed "Feets" during his high school football days, it was the Pacific island-hopping battle against the Japanese that got him started.
On an island in the East Indies, the army would send out a big flatbed truck, and the soldiers would clamber on, he said. The medics would take them "down to the hospital, jerk out a pint of blood, give you a shot of bourbon and send you back to work."
"We were happy to do it," recalls Willard, who served behind lines as an airplane mechanic. "The boys out there needed it."
Now, at 75, trim and with a humorous cynicism that compels him to throw his eyes back at most any topic, Willard's passed 12 gallons. He started on his 13th gallon Monday while giving blood to the Bloodmobile at the Blacksburg Marriott.
"I always feel better when I get it done," he says.
For Clevenger, who received a pin for his 15th gallon Monday at the Marriott, "It's an easy way to save lives.
"Just drain it out."
Clevenger, 65, of Blacksburg, has been called twice to hospitals for direct transfusions, he says. He tries to give every two months, but regulations forbid him to give more than five times a year.
"There's no age limit to it as long as your health is all right." He's been giving since his 20s, he says.
"That was the age of high-powered cars. We all drove like maniacs," he says. Back in the 50s, there was a ton of wrecks."
That, and the leadership of the man who's got both Clevenger and Willard beat, made him aware of the need to give blood.
For decades, John Roller chaired the blood program in Giles County, where Clevenger lived.
Roller, a manic Hokie who for years served on the Pearisburg Town Council, had to "retire" from the blood donation business two summers ago, when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Doctors removed one tumor, but had to leave another in.
Still, he proudly remembers leading the drives with the help of his wife, Fay, and many volunteers.
"We had one of the most successful blood programs around," and on one day took in 611 pints from two locations, he says. They used to make the drives more attractive by offering prizes, until the Red Cross began to frown on that because it seemed too much like a selling point.
Like Willard, Roller, 73, first began giving blood during World War II, battling the Germans in the European Theatre.
"One of the soldiers needed blood," said Roller, who was himself wounded twice, "and they needed someone to hold the bag," that fed into his veins intravenously.
"I held the bag over him."
When he returned home as a captain, he soon became involved in the blood drives in Giles. Fay Roller, 75, would also volunteer.
Nowadays, it's tougher to get people to come out, says Roller, who left the blood program chairman's job less than a year ago. People are unduly afraid of AIDS - you can't contract the disease from giving blood - or people are just plain apprehensive that it'll be painful.
But, "when they first give a pint, they're not afraid of it anymore," he says.
One pint at a time, Roller himself has given 146. That's more than 18 gallons worth.
He likes to think of it as about a third of a 55-gallon drum.
Fay Roller, who's given three gallons herself, says, "I come from the country, so I measure it by milk buckets. Just think of all those milk buckets out there."
by CNB