Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409200051
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By JEFF DOUGLAS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It was a fitting tribute, one that evoked the tears and the heartache that help us, in some mysterious way, to come to terms with tragedies such as this.
Yet Talbot, one of 132 killed during the horrifying crash of USAir Flight 427 near Pittsburgh, will be missed by many more. The international veterinary community mourns the life of Dick Talbot, who was quite simply a visionary.
Dick Talbot hired me in 1983, and I had the privilege to know him and work with him for 11 years. Our community grieves his loss as we would a man of his stature: educator, family man, civic leader.
But there is more. Much more. Many know from new reports that he built this veterinary college. Yet to understand the contributions he has made to veterinary medicine, it is helpful to glimpse at Virginia history.
Throughout this century, the movement to create a veterinary college in the commonwealth gained and lost momentum several times, usually a victim of the Old Dominion's legendary fiscal restraint.
But when Dick Talbot came to Virginia Tech in the fall of 1974, it was crystal clear that Virginia would at long last have a veterinary college.
With trademark energy and enthusiasm, Talbot mounted a powerful grass-roots campaign, forging coalitions of companion animal and agricultural animal organizations, that in turn convinced the Virginia legislature that the time was now.
He pioneered the regional relationship we have with Maryland, creating an interstate partnership in professional education which remains a national model of innovation and efficiency.
With then-Tech Vice President Charlie Forbes, he raised $8 million in the "Campaign for the Veterinary College," Tech's first major capital campaign. He worked tirelessly to secure the state and federal dollars needed to build a campus.
He hired a faculty, constructed a curriculum, recruited students. When he stepped down following the graduation of the veterinary college's charter class in 1984, he had laid the foundation for a school which stands tall among this nation's 26 others.
But Dick wasn't finished. He went to Washington and ran the Food and Drug Administration's Office of New Animal Drugs, where decisions are made about what drugs can be used with our pets and farm animals.
Recently, he was summoned to Washington to talk about the FDA's top veterinary post, although he didn't want it.
Ever the visionary, ever the achiever, Dick returned to the veterinary college and again put Virginia-Maryland on the map by channeling his love for computers into the creation of a new program in veterinary informatics, an emerging discipline that merges computer science with veterinary medicine.
As the Rev. D. Cameron Murchison Jr. said, he was applying "the promising frontiers of technology to advance the profession of veterinary medicine."
The impact of his work will affect millions who did not know him. The leadership he brought to the profession of veterinary medicine resonates throughout society in the form of healthier pets and a safer national food supply.
Filing out of Blacksburg Presbyterian, I paused to talk with Dr. Rick Mills, a 40-year-old veterinarian so impressed by Talbot's drive and vision for veterinary informatics that he left his two thriving veterinary practices in Virginia Beach, packed up his wife and kids and moved to Blacksburg to earn a doctorate under Talbot's mentorship.
Eyes wet with tears, Rick said he would miss Talbot's smile, his savvy and his intellect; and then he reminded me that Dick was never one to stand on ceremony, especially when it came to himself.
What Dick would say right now, he said, is "Let's get busy." And so we shall. For the greatest tribute we can pay Dick Talbot is to reaffirm our own commitments to the profession, to the college and to the people and animals he held so dear.
Jeff Douglas is public relations coordinator for the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine.
by CNB