Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 26, 1993 TAG: 9312270296
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Long
It started in the neighborhood behind Radford High School, where candle-filled paper bags line a two-block loop on Christmas Eve.
In 1972, Radford High School Spanish teacher Margaret Pierce started lining the driveway of the school with the bags. She funded the fixings - 600 paper bags, sand and candles - every year until her retirement in 1990, when the drive went dark.
But this year, Pierce's former students, coming from Roanoke, Spotsylvania County and even Germany, braved temperatures in the 30s to set up the display in her honor.
"There are so many people who love her so much," said Christi Johnson, who initiated the idea to bring back the luminaria after a lunch with her former teacher. "You've got kids out here who didn't even take Spanish, who are in school now and don't even know a Mrs. Pierce."
On Friday afternoon, 600 donated paper bags from Kroger, half a pickup load of sand from Central Lumber and candles salvaged from Pierce's basement met volunteers and the honored teacher.
"We originally thought this was going to have to be put off because of the expense," said Johnson, Radford High class of '86, who solicited the donations. "We've makeshifted everything, just so we could put it on. The spirit just kind of came, too."
"We got comments from everybody in Radford, `It's just not the same Christmas Eve.' People in the city of Radford didn't know who was behind it, until it was gone, and everybody was talking about it," said Johnson, who lives in Roanoke.
Another of Pierce's former students, Tonya Knox, was home after seven years in the Army in Germany.
"She always told me, `Tonita, stop talking, shut your mouth,' " Knox recalled fondly. "I used to chatter away, and she'd say, `At least do it in Spanish.' "
When Pierce arrived in a bright red coat, her former students gathered around her like children clamoring for hugs. "They grow up too fast!" she said to no one in particular as she pulled them close.
David Lyons, a 1988 Radford High graduate, reported that he teaches school in Spotsylvania County. "Boy, I hope they give you a hard time!" she exclaimed.
"I never gave anyone a hard time," he shot back with exaggerated innocence. He may quit teaching soon, he told her.
"You'll be sorry," she warned. "It's the best profession on earth."
Playfully, she chattered away in Spanish to Johnson.
"Don't be talking to me in Spanish after the four years I haven't had it!" Johnson said indignantly.
Back inside her truck, Pierce was sad and reflective. "It breaks my heart to see them, when I know I can't be with them. I've cried a whole lot of tears. I just can't get used to it."
She said she never planned to be a teacher. She wanted to major in chemistry at Emory & Henry College; but during World War II, only the Naval recruits were allowed textbooks. Organic chemistry is a trifle difficult with no book, she said wryly, so she became an English major.
She ended up in Radford by accident, as well. She was planning to move from Saltville, where she had been teaching, to Northern Virginia and stopped at the arsenal for a summer of work as a chemist.
\ When the volunteer group returned at dusk to light the bags, the cold wind didn't dampen Pierce's spirits one iota. One former student was using a cigarette lighter on the candles. "Why do you have a Bic lighter?" Pierce demanded. Then, in Spanish: "Do you smoke cigarettes?"
The former student shook his head "no" emphatically, and Pierce responded, "Good! You better not." Only after she was out of of sight did he light up.
The students worked gloveless, with fumbling fingers that sometimes ignited bags. "I'm about to jump in one of these bags and warm up," Lyons complained good-naturedly.
But they did it - for Pierce, and for the memory of Robbie Wright, who played on Radford High's state football championship team in the early '70s.
The school's current students weren't even born when Wright played. But in Radford, people remember. When Wright died in a Tennessee auto accident this year, everyone heard about it. The coach of that winning team, Norman Ninnaberg, also was among honorees for the Christmas Eve luminaria.
Pierce said she remembers that in years past the students would come back at midnight to check to see that no vandals had kicked over lights, or no wind had snuffed them out.
"It's just such a beautiful thing and so good for kids to get involved," she said. "Getting kids turned on to the culture of the country they were studying."
Memo: ***CORRECTION***