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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 1, 1994                   TAG: 9404040199
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

IN BUSINESS

Roanoke Gas Co. declared the company's 200th consecutive quarterly dividend Friday. The 50-cent-per-share dividend will be paid May 1 to shareholders on April 15. The dividend has been at the 50-cent level for several years.

Frank Farmer, president, said the company's record of never missing a dividend during the 50 years it has been publicly owned is significant.

Also, he said, Roanoke Gas expects to report first-quarter earnings later this month. Profits should be up because demand for fuel this winter was the highest in five years.

-Staff report

United Lending has new program

United Companies Lending Corp., a Baton Rouge, La., mortgage lender with an office in Roanoke County, said Thursday it will introduce its "Co Pilot" program to the local building industry at a breakfast meeting Thursday at the Airport Marriott.

Dwayne Burks, a company spokesman in its Charlotte, N.C., office, said home-improvement contractors will be urged to bring to United Companies their potential customers who have failed to get financing elsewhere. United Companies will try to qualify them for home equity loans through its standard program of first and second mortgages.

-Staff report