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

DATE: SATURDAY, May 14, 1994                   TAG: 9405160165
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LYNN COYLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VWCC GRADS GET CHEERS, BUT NOT DIPLOMAS

The severe winter weather has again taken its toll on Southwest Virginia. This time its victims were the Virginia Western Community College graduates who attended Friday night's commencement ceremony at the Roanoke Civic Center.

Instead of the diplomas and certificates that would normally be presented, students received a white sheet of paper telling them when and where to pick up their diplomas.

The winter school closings shortened their class and exam schedules, eating into the processing time required to get the diplomas out, explained David Hanson, director of instructional support services. ``To get the right diploma in the right hands is tricky enough under the best of circumstances,'' he said.

The brief ceremony included an address by Meredith L. Strohm, provost of the New College of Global Studies at Radford University. Then the friends and families got what they had come for - the chance to clap and cheer for their favorite graduates.

Not receiving the real diploma didn't faze Bryan Wilhelmi, 39, of Shawsville, who is completing his second associate degree in as many years.

Wilhelmi, who has attended the school off and on since 1978, has overcome physical handicaps and learning disabilities to earn his degrees. As other students walked out of the coliseum during the recessional, he rolled his wheelchair to the doorway and waited for his wife and his 8-week-old daughter.

And if he has his way, Wilhelmi will be back this time next year for a third degree, the next step toward his goal of becoming a teacher.

Juli C. White isn't waiting around until the week of May 23 to pick up her dental hygiene degree from the college records office. She, her husband and their two children planned to head back home this morning to Berea, Ky., where she will start a new job Monday.

``The thing I'm proud of is that I got a job real fast,'' White, 23, said. The dentists in her hometown know that the curriculum at Virginia Western is harder than at schools closer to home. ``They all pounced on me.''

Mary Loritsch, the faculty member who is chairwoman of the commencement committee, said she's glad to have gotten through the evening with no major incidents. She recalled the year the circus was at the Civic Center: A drunken elephant trainer crashed the ceremony and disrupted the event.

by CNB