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

DATE: TUESDAY, August 2, 1994                   TAG: 9408020076
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MELISSA DeVAUGHN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SCRAPBOOK AN OLD TRADITION

I was cleaning out my attic last week (actually I was frantically searching for a lost hiking guide), when I came across a worn, blue spiral-bound notebook with "My Horse Scrapbook" written across the front in big, crooked letters.

Faded articles about horses and photographs of mares and stallions were carefully attached to the pages with yellowed, brittle tape. Several of them slid off the page and landed in my lap as the old tape lost its grip.

Underneath the articles were short passages, written with big, sweeping child-like letters. Button-sized circles dotted the i's, the e's were drawn as half-moons with a slash coming from the top and every other word was underlined in bold blue magic marker. I spiced up the articles by adding my own commentaries about each article:

"This horse is very cool and he likes to jump fences. I think this is the kind of horse I would like."

"The palomino horse is a pretty golden, but the appaloosa has spots like a fireman's dog. The appaloosa was used by the Indians."

"The Roanoke Valley Horse show will be lots of fun because all the horses in the world will be there."

I labored over that scrapbook for almost three years - from the time I was 10, until I reached puberty and boys took on more importance than horses. The notebook was evidence of my desire at the time to be a veterinarian, to work with animals and ride beautiful bay horses into the sunset.

The Sunday paper was the best because it was thick and there were always more pictures. The minute those pages were out of my dad's hands, I was there on the dining room floor, scissors in hand, ready to cut out any photo, article or advertisement that showed a horse. Once I forgot to wait for dad to read the paper and had halfway cut the thing to shreds when he walked into the room, his ears red in anger, a stern look on his face.

But that's another story ...

I had a collection of at least 20 photos of the Malboro man atop his horse, wearing a 10-gallon cowboy hat, carrying a rope in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Every now and then an Associated Press photo would run, or a local shot of a local horse. I even took my own photos once when dad drove me to Towers Shopping Center in Roanoke to see the Budweiser Clydesdales.

The best part came each summer when the Roanoke Valley Horse Show came to town and a special tabloid section came in the paper, chock-full of horse talk. I could fill pages of my scrapbook at one sitting. At night, instead of visions of sugarplums dancing through my head, my mind was filled with thoughts of leather western riding saddles, shiny bits with reins, flowing mane and glistening, muscular withers.

I had no idea when I carfeully cut out the date and source of each article and photo that I would someday be working for this paper, writing my own stories (one of them about horses - thank you, Tom Meacham). What had once been a childhood pastime was, in a way, preparing me for my job as our newspaper's education writer.

So, while I didn't become a veterinarian, I still get to write stories like I did in my scrapbook. And each day when I come to work, the first thing I do is sit down and cut out articles, carefully taping them to my files. These articles deal with education and the schools.

I call it "My School Scrapbook."

Melissa DeVaughn is the education writer at the Roanoke Times & World-News' New River Valley bureau.

by CNB