Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 27, 1995 TAG: 9502270080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Well, 5,343 of them, anyway. That's how many people took the time Friday and Saturday to phone in their votes for our highly unscientific InfoLine poll about the Big Boy with an earring and an attitude that stands atop the new Star City Diner in downtown Roanoke.
City officials say he violates the rooftop sign ordinance and must come down; restaurateur Roland ``Spanky'' Macher says he'll wage ``war'' to keep his Big Boy.
So what do the people say - in this case the people with a Touch-Tone phone and time on their hands (or, at least, their dialing fingers)?
If this were a real election, it would have been a landslide of thundering proportions:
4,532, or 85 percent, said Big Boy should stay.
811, or 15 percent, said Big Boy should go.
So what's next in the Big Boy saga? Macher had wanted to erect a second statue on his rooftop Friday, a fiberglass waitress with roller skates and a flashing neon hula hoop. He'd even decided to name her ``Star,'' a name suggested by one of the many well-wishers he says have called him to offer moral support. But Star was a no-show Friday and the latest word is that Natural Bridge artist Mark Cline won't have her ready until Wednesday or Thursday.
But Macher is undeterred. On Sunday, he hoisted a substitute statue - this one a short-lived pitchman for Hardee's that he found at the same Georgia antique shop as the Big Boy - onto his roof. ``If they let me keep the Bad Boy, I'll take Downtown Joe down,'' Macher offered. ``I want them to compromise.''
Will the city give in? Will Macher be branded a zoning outlaw? Will Big Boy be just a passing fancy or become Roanoke's favorite landmark since the star? Tune in tomorrow, folks.
A homecoming for Hill
A packed reception of friends at Roanoke's Harrison Museum of African American Culture recently welcomed Oliver W. Hill Sr. back to his hometown.
The famed Richmond civil rights attorney, 87, wondered aloud about the whereabouts of his childhood friend, Robbie Board. ``Somebody said, `She's here!' and I threw my hand up,'' said Board, 89, and they had a few minutes to reminisce. She and Hill, who she says was skipped ahead a couple of grades, went to Gainsboro and Harrison schools together. Harrison School is now the Harrison Museum.
Board, long a leader of the Roanoke NAACP, remembers going to Hill's birthday party when she was 5. ``He was the arguing-est little boy,'' Board says with affection. ``I told somebody, `He's going to be a lawyer one of these days.'''
Hill grew up at 401 Gilmer Ave. N.W. in Gainsboro. After law school at Howard University, he practiced law in a professional building at Henry and High streets in Gainsboro before moving on to Washington, D.C., and later Richmond. A law classmate and friend of the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Hill was trial attorney in the Virginia portion of the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case ordering desegregation of the nation's schools.
Clarence Dunnaville, a law partner of Hill's and also Roanoke-born, has lent the Harrison Museum a collection of 1950s photographs of Hill, Marshall and other lawyers in the Brown case. The photos are on display through March.
Change of address
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, has changed his address for electronic mail via the Internet.
Boucher, who previously relied on an aide's mail account, now has his own: ninthnethr.house.gov
The 9th District congressman will still answer e-mail the old-fashioned way: through the U.S. Postal Service. He asks that e-mail correspondents include their postal mailing address with their messages.
(Boucher's postal address, for the technophobes among us, is: 2245 Rayburn House Office Building; Washington, D.C. 20515.)
Boucher joins a growing segment of federal officeholders who are on the Internet, including 50 House members. Among Western Virginia lawmakers, only Rep. L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County, isn't online. Addresses for the others are:
Sen. Charles Robb: senator-robbrobb.senate.gov
Sen. John Warner: senatorwarner.senate.gov
Rep. Bob Goodlatte: talk2bobhr.house.gov
Keep 'em there longer
A Virginia political commentator thinks the General Assembly should hold longer sessions.
Emory & Henry College President Thomas R. Morris is the author of an article in the newest issue of ``Virginia Capitol Connections.''
In it, he argues that the legislative session is not long enough to conduct all business before the legislature in an efficient, responsible and fair manner.
Although there has been public concern that Congress stays in session too long, Morris says the opposite is true of Virginia's legislature.
by CNB