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

DATE: SUNDAY, September 18, 1994                   TAG: 9409200048
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Elizabeth Obenshain
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THERE WAS NO TIME TO SAY GOODBYE|

Two weeks ago, I drove up to Lexington to visit a friend who has come face to face with his own mortality as he battles a sudden and particularly virulent form of cancer. I won't let go of the hope that he'll miraculously triumph, but I wanted to make sure I saw him again, hugged his now-frail body, and talked while there still was time.

But with another friend, there was no time.

Last week, I awoke to the worst kind of news - that a friend had died in the airplane tragedy that had just sent a shudder through the whole country.

Dick Talbot was one of the people who truly changed the face of Virginia Tech and Blacksburg.

He created in this community a college of veterinary medicine that brought with it dollars, buildings and jobs. It also attracted a faculty from around the world, whose knowledge and sophistication have enriched this community.

But most of us when we heard the numbing news didn't think in terms of a man known internationally for his veterinary work, a man who was already dean of a major veterinary college when he was recruited to Blacksburg 20 years ago to start up the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine.

We thought instead of the man who exuded kindness. A man who always met you with a smile, a chuckle. A man who somehow had the time to focus just on you when you needed his ear. He made time, despite his wide-ranging academic and professional responsibilities, to help you with little chores you should never have bothered him with in the first place. He was truly kindness itself.

His was not the normal impact on this community, nor the normal loss. Even those who didn't know him well, knew him as a gentle and caring person and felt his death as a personal blow. One friend at a local business described how people in her office broke into tears when they heard the news of his death.

One thing his life certainly disproved was the adage that nice guys finish last. His life was a regular "who's who" of accomplishments, yet he managed to blaze the way for a new veterinary college and other advances in his field with a demeanor that was good-humored, positive and kind.

His wife, Jane, extended that warmth in their home and personal lives.

Blacksburg will be a smaller place without Dick Talbot, but those of us who knew him will carry the memory and the example of his kindness within us.

We miss you, Dick.

Elizabeth Obenshain is the Roanoke Times & World-News' New River editor.

by CNB