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

DATE: FRIDAY, February 17, 1995                   TAG: 9502170032
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Medium

`FRIENDLINESS' IS AIM OF PULASKI BUSINESS ALLIANCE HEAD

When Roscoe Cox first came to Pulaski in 1957, he and his wife got visits from the Welcome Wagon lady, a man who ran a dry-cleaning business, a car dealer, and town and Chamber of Commerce officials who recruited him to head Pulaski's first Community Chest drive.

``The friendliest town I ever saw in my life. And it went on and on,'' he said.

He took a job elsewhere in 1964. But he and his wife were so taken with the friendliness that they came back to Pulaski to retire.

``When we moved back,'' Cox told about 35 people at a meeting Thursday kicking off the town's new economic development program, ``I doubt that any merchants knew we were even here.''

Cox never exactly retired. He was named head of the town's Main Street program and, more recently, of the new townwide economic development board that is succeeding it.

``We do want to have a Pulaski Business Alliance and bring everybody under one roof,'' he said. ``We will not do any advertising for just one segment of our community. We will do advertising for every segment.''

Cox's assistant, Keith Stafford, and Leslie Howard of the New River Valley Planning District Commission are planning a random mail survey to see what would draw shoppers from surrounding areas to Pulaski. Another survey in cooperation with business professors at Radford University aims at establishing distance learning education centers for Radford and New River Community College in unused buildings in downtown Pulaski.

``In classes where there is an overflow at New River or Radford University, we want them,'' Town Councilwoman Bettye Steger said.

But Cox said it will take an effort by local business people to get back to that spirit of friendliness he and his wife encountered when they lived previously in Pulaski.

``We have a lot of things going on that are dynamic, but who the hell knows this? We are the best-kept secret in Southwest Virginia,'' he said. ``We cannot be strangers and be merchants. ... That is the thing with business. You have to ask the girl to dance. She might slap your face but at least you'll know where you stand.''

Cox noted that, in the last two years, Pulaski has added $2.9 million in new business investment and more than 70 jobs downtown. That is on top of business expansions at places like Pulaski Furniture Corp. and Volvo-GM Heavy Truck Corp.

``We have a lot of innovative situations going now,'' he said, including the renovated town Train Station and its Raymond Ratcliffe Memorial Museum to which New River Trail State Park will be extended, a citizens group working to restore the town movie theater as a community cultural center, and more.

Merchants and civic leaders attending the breakfast meeting at Pulaski Community Hospital were positive in their reactions to the program.

``I think it's a good thing from the town's standpoint to go townwide instead of two or three blocks,'' said businessman C.E. Boyd. He said Pulaski stores have something that businesses in larger areas lack. ``You're a number to those folks. To us, you're a customer.''

``Hanging around Roscoe for the last year and a half that I've been back here ... it's contagious,'' said Town Manager Tom Combiths. ``I feel like, and I think the council members share the same idea, that something is happening in Pulaski. This is not just hype.''

by CNB