Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 24, 1994 TAG: 9405240072
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Hobbs, instrumental in building Montgomery County Regional Hospital in 1971, practiced dentistry for 48 years.
He was such a nice dentist, you didn't mind going, said Marc Long. Hobbs was his dentist from Long's teen years until his early 30s. "He would always start talking to me about some issue and I could not talk back," he said.
Hobbs became familiar with local issues when he served for 10 years on Blacksburg Town Council in the '50s.
Blacksburg and Virginia Tech were entirely different places "a thousand years ago," as former Mayor John Barringer described their tenure on council.
Tech had 6,000 students, mostly cadets - all males had to serve in the Corps until 1964. Tech didn't begin its huge growth until the late '60s.
Although Hobbs served before Blacksburg's rapid changes, he was pro-development, Barringer said.
"His judgment helped Blacksburg in some formative years back then," said Long, whose father was town attorney when Hobbs served on council. "He had the best interest of the town as a whole at heart."
"He didn't make speeches," Barringer said. "His actions spoke louder than words."
Although Hobbs didn't let the majority sway him, he wasn't stubborn either. "He voted like he felt," Barringer said, but "he was very reasonable."
Long said that Hobbs often pulled strings behind the scenes. He pushed the building of the Methodist students' Wesleyan Community Center, for example. "He didn't seek a lot of notoriety for what he did," Long said.
One of the issues on Town Council in that era was - what else? - highways. Hobbs and all of council supported widening the then two-lane U.S. 460 on "the bad seven-mile drive to Blacksburg."
Barringer said council's support had little effect, however. "The state Highway Department had the upper hand," he said.
Hobbs not only served his town with distinction, he also was a good friend, Barringer said. They road-tripped several times to Boone, N.C., where Hobbs had studied. What did they talk about? "You'd be surprised," Barringer said, laughing.
Barringer, who called himself an "import" to Blacksburg, came before Hobbs, who arrived in 1942. He said, "I was here before he was, I could pull rank on him."
Hobbs was a member of a different generation - when you could live in a town 50 years and still be called a newcomer.
He was "always a nice gentleman, all the time," Long said. "It's kind of an old school thing."
by CNB