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

DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994                   TAG: 9406260132
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

FARRIS JOINS ALLEN'S APPOINTEES

Mike Farris, the losing Republican candidate for lieutenant governor last fall, was appointed to the Education Commission of the States. Farris is president and founder of The Home School Legal Defense Fund.

William Bosher, the state school superintendent, also was appointed to the commission.

Although the extent of Allen's firing of agency directors far exceeds that of his predecessors, all governors have traditionally filled the advisory boards and commissions with allies and political contributors.

Allen named his Charlottesville barber to the Virginia Board for Barbers. Kenneth Staples will join the five-member panel that licenses people to practice and teach barbering.

Allen appointed attorney Garland Bigley of Petersburg to the governing board of Virginia State University. A Republican, she has served on Petersburg's City Council for six years and was the commissioner of the Virginia Commission for the Arts. She is an associate with the law firm of McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe.

To find a spot for Bigley, Allen dumped Suzanne Yount of Richmond, an executive vice president at Crestar Bank. Yount had been appointed to the board last year by former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.

Wilder shook up the board after demanding the resignations of all its members as part of his pledge to restore VSU to its former position as a leading black-majority institution of higher education. Eventually, the Democrat replaced four of the 11 board members.

Following partisan lines, Allen appointed Randolph Byrd of Buckingham County and John Goolrick of Fredericksburg to the Board of Historic Resources.

Byrd, a former chairman of the Republican committee in the 5th Congressional District, is president and publisher of MLM Publishing Inc. He replaces Sandra Speiden of Somerset.

Goolrick, a longtime political reporter, columnist and aide to two Republican congressmen, replaces Richard Hobson of Alexandria. Goolrick is Fredericksburg regional director for Rep. Herbert Bateman, R-1st, and was an aide to former Rep. D. French Slaughter Jr.

JoAnne Webb of Midlothian and I. Russell Berkness of Richmond will join the State Air Pollution Control Board. Webb is the principal owner and manager of Scott Pallets Inc. and Scott Transport Inc. Berkness is board chairman of Berkness Control & Equipment Corp.

Appointments were made to several other panels, including the Board of Medicine, Virginia Gas and Oil Board and Board of Trustees of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation.