Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407040084
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ADRIENNE PETTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ With the spirit of pioneers, some tourists from Roanoke and points beyond scrambled to be the first to arrive at Virginia's Explore Park Saturday.
Ten-year-old Mike Carpenter of Richmond rushed his parents and two sisters into the family car at 5:30 a.m to make it before the park's 9 a.m. grand opening.
"We were gonna try to be first, but didn't make it," he said regretfully.
Frank Roupas, the Roanoke ballroom dancing instructor who got the first three automobile decals from the city two years in a row, proclaimed himself first again, this time boarding a shuttle bus from the Roanoke Civic Center to the park.
"I was the first one on the bus and the first one off," he bragged giddily.
But the true trailblazers were Thomas Ore and family, whose car was the first to enter the park.
"We weren't planning on being the first people," said Ore, who left Forest at 7:15 a.m. "We didn't even know what time it opened."
The Ore family inadvertently led the line of cars into the long- anticipated debut of the living history museum, which many hope will attract Roanoke Valley citizens and Blue Ridge Parkway travelers.
"It's a place that I would drive four hours to see, so if I'm five minutes away, I'll definitely come to see it," said Don Shires of Roanoke. "I believe it could be a very major draw, but I guess only time will tell, and today's the first step in that."
If Saturday is any indication, Explore is off to the right start.
The Poplewski family of Buffalo, N.Y., who were en route to Myrtle Beach, S.C., came because they saw a blurb on Explore in a Virginia travel guide.
"We thought we'd go to Williamsburg, but then we thought we'd go see a different part of Virginia," Kathy Poplewski said.
Other out-of towners hailed from Houma, La. and Liberty, S.C.
By noon, about 225 visitors had entered the park. The total number of guests by the time the park closed at 5 p.m. was about 600, which director Rupert Cutler said was "just fine."
After parking, many guests stopped first at Explore's gift shop, which features regional crafts.
Then, they walked through Explore, which consists mostly of a re-assembled 1830s farmstead with costumed re-enactors playing the parts of a frontier family.
Many seemed pleased, saying the park was "authentic" and "educational."
Mildred Booth, 76, and Mary Wray, 70, two spry sisters who grew up in Franklin County, trekked up the gravel path that snakes through the park to see Kemps Ford School. The one-room schoolhouse, built about 1860 by a few Franklin County families, was donated by Horace Fralin, whose mother, Ollie Pasley Fralin, taught there from 1924 to 1926.
The sisters proudly said that Ollie Pasley taught their 80-year-old brother at another schoolhouse in Franklin County.
They said the sights and sounds of Explore were old hat; they grew up in the country. The park's mainly for kids, they said.
Twelve-year-old David Parker marveled at the demonstration of tomahawk throwing, used by Native Americans for hunting.
"I learned that it took a lot of work to live instead of now, when you have all the appliances," said 12-year-old David Parker. "I wanted to live like this for a long time because I'm really interested in the woods and animals."
Carpenter, the would-be first tourist, picked up ideas from Explore to take back to Richmond, where his family volunteers as re-enactors at Meadow Farm Museum, a small living-history museum. He wants Meadow Farm to have a horse-drawn carriage too, although Explore had slight trouble with it.
After making 20 trips, the hitch broke. One man jumped off and said, "Could somebody call AAA?" Laughter erupted among other visitors.
Explore's blacksmith shop fascinated Carpenter, who pumps the bellows for the smith at Meadow Farm. Likewise, his sisters, Brittany, 6, and Heather, 8, carded wool at the Hofauger Farmstead.
Their parents said getting hands-on exposure to frontier life enhances their childrens' knowledge of history.
"When it comes up in school, it's second nature," said Jim Carpenter.
by CNB