ROANOKE TIMES

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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 10, 1994                   TAG: 9402100233
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium


TV TURNS ATTENTION TO ELECTRONIC VILLAGE

While Blacksburg Electronic Village users tinker with a futuristic computerized network that connects them with the world, a more conventional kind of vision - television - is telling the world about them.

Tonight,thursday NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw will air a segment on the village connection in an ongoing series called "Almost 2001," which touches on cutting-edge technology that is bringing the world into the next century.

"To try to wire a town ... the goal behind the village is something [NBC's] very intrigued by," said David Nutter, a spokesman with Virginia Tech.

"The point they're interested in ... is this kind of thing is happening not just in the big urban areas but also in the small towns," Nutter said.

Producer Les Kretman spent three days in Blacksburg last week filming and interviewing BEV, town and Tech officials for the piece. Based in Washington, he worked with correspondent Bob Hager, who will be in Blacksburg this morning to do the piece's "stand-up" portion.

"We look at futuristic things that are likely to be grabbed by the whole country in the future," Kretman said.

The TV exposure follows a New York Times article last month that focused on the Electronic Village.

"While others toil on and talk about national information superhighways, an unusual town-and-gown alliance is paving an electronic country lane here," that article began.

Kretman said it wasn't just reading the paper that brought his attention to Blacksburg.

The New York Times piece helped, he said, but there's also a photographer at the network whose daughter majors in chemistry at Tech.

The segment will last more than three minutes - twice the normal length of a piece - and most likely will be near the end of the news program, Kretman said.



 by CNB