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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 8, 1994                   TAG: 9404080215
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: By SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

TEMPUS FUGIT - IT'S TRINKLE TIME

Saturday and Thursday were proclaimed Jimmy Trinkle Days in Roanoke, but the real estate executive didn't know about it until late Thursday, when present and past coworkers gave him a surprise 65th birthday party.

"This is WHAT?" Trinkle said in his gravelly, Papa Bear voice.

Trinkle, who has cut back on his hours at C.W. Francis & Son Inc. where he is president of the commercial real estate brokerage, was asked to stay late Thursday so the Festival in the Park board could honor him. He has donated office space to the organization for many years.

There were no Festival folks, however, just a lot of Roanoke Valley real estate people who all got their starts in the business by working for C.W. Francis.

Trinkle, who turned 65 on Saturday, took it all graciously, even Roanoke Mayor David Bowers' retelling a typical Trinkle joke about the expensive lawyer, the cheap lawyer and the Easter Bunny. The punch line is that a cheap lawyer and the Easter Bunny are both "figments of imagination."

There also was a recounting of some of Trinkle's civic activities, which included stints on the Hampden-Sydney College Board of Trustees and the Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia, and as president of the Roanoke Merchants Association. Bowers, in a proclamation, called him "the dean of the real estate industry" and "just one all-round good guy."

Hall presented the group's gift, a silver tray engraved "Tempus Fugit."

Memo: ***CORRECTION***

by CNB