Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 16, 1994 TAG: 9409160022
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Richardson has a friend in Greensboro who saw the big band and said the same thing.
That made Richardson wonder when the group would come to Roanoke. He made some inquiries and found that the city was not on the band's intinerary. Richardson, a retired insurance executive, decided to bring the band in himself.
He booked them for Sept. 19 - Monday - without even knowing where he'd put them. But Richardson thought a bit and realized the mutual tie between him and his friends in Atlanta and Greensboro was the years they spent as students at Roanoke's old Jefferson High School.
He decided to tie the Jefferson Center, the phoenix-like incarnation of the old school, to the Miller band's appearance.
Monday night, the Glenn Miller Orchestra will play at the Roanoke Civic Center coliseum in a combined concert-dinner dance format. Doors will open at 6:30. The music and buffet will begin at 7:30. Richardson will pay for it, and after recouping his expenses, donate the rest of the proceeds to the Jefferson Center Foundation.
Tickets are $46 for floor seating, dancing and buffet; $22 for box seats, and $15 for concourse seats. Tickets are available from the Roanoke Civic Center box office and from Ticketmaster.
In Roanoke, the Ticketmaster number is 343-8100; in the New River Valley it is 951-8427, and in Lynchburg it is (804) 846-8100.
The Miller Orchestra is led by trombonist Larry O'Brien. It travels 100,000 miles per year to play nearly 300 dates for an estimated 500,000 people. It's the descendant of the Miller Orchestra formed in 1938 - the one that had the hits, ``String of Pearls,'' ``In the Mood'' and ``Chattanooga Choo Choo,'' among many others.
Miller disbanded that group in 1942 to volunteer for the Army. On Dec. 15, 1944, he disappeared over the English Channel on a flight from London to Paris. Neither he nor the airplane was ever found. He was declared dead one year later.
The orchestra was re-formed in 1956 following the release of the film, ``The Glenn Miller Story.'' Today, the average age of its members, who include two singers, is 23.
Jefferson High School opened in 1924 and graduated 19,000 Roanokers before it closed in 1974. Used for special education classes till 1979, it suffered disuse and vandalism until the formation of the Jefferson Foundation in 1989. The public-private partnership with the city has led to its rebirth as an office complex, the home of public-access TV and, supporters hope, the re-opening of its 900-seat auditorium, a restoration that could cost $4 million.
The former high school is home to Opera Roanoke's offices, the Roanoke City Police Academy, the city's fire adminstration office and water department, the Campbell Avenue Child Development Center, the Roanoke Jaycees, Appalridge Farms, Prevention Plus, a youth program and other agencies and services.
It has two remaining areas, of 1,800 and 1,200 square feet, available for lease, said Jane Stephenson, the foundation's executive director, and it lacks $37,000 to reach its initial fundraising goal of $2 million.
``I've got a lot of loyalty to Jefferson,'' Richardson says. He has a picture of himself and his wife, Lillian, taken on the school's steps when they were students there, around 1941. They wed in 1944, after Richardson had become a military pilot - yet another connection, of sorts, to the Glenn Miller story.
THE GLENN MILLER ORCHESTRA: Monday, 7:30 p.m., Roanoke Civic Center coliseum. Tickets, $46 for table seating with buffet, cash bar and dance area; $22 box seats; $15 concourse seats. Benefits Jefferson Center Foundation. 981-1201.
by CNB