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

DATE: SATURDAY, December 3, 1994                   TAG: 9412060020
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BRIEFLY PUT . . .

WITH THE death this week of Harold N. Hoback, at age 64, the Roanoke Valley has lost a businessman and booster - and Virginia Tech a stalwart friend.

A small, primarily military school for men when Hoback graduated in 1953 (the Air Force was another of his enthusiasms), Tech had become a comprehensive state university by the time he was helping lead the $117 million Campaign for Excellence in the '80s and heading the Hotel Roanoke Foundation in the '90s.

In valuing the transformed Tech while honoring the original, Hoback quietly was, as in other ways, a lesson to others.

WHY IS it that the president and Congress have to struggle so to reform welfare, as if this were a complicated exercise? It would be no big deal if they'd just read the lips of presidential offspring Jeb Bush.

While running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in Florida, the son of George suggested it's easy as pie: All those women on the welfare rolls simply need ``to get their life together and find a husband.'' Bet Jesse Helms wishes he'd said that.

by CNB