Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 11, 1995 TAG: 9506130006
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY, RANDY KING, ANDREA KUHN, SANDRA BROWN KELLY AND STEPHE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Here are some of the people who have made some high-profile projects in the region happen over the past few years.
INTERSTATE 73
The idea for a Michigan-to-South Carolina interstate originated with a group of Bluefield, W.Va., business leaders headed by K.A. Ammar Jr., who saw it as a way to open up the southern reaches of the Mountain State for economic development. Working with their state's influential congressional delegation, they succeeded in getting the proposed Interstate 73 written into the 1991 federal highway bill.
The Bluefield group figured the road would simply follow Interstate 77 through Southwest Virginia. But during his 1993 campaign for the House of Delegates, Morgan Griffith championed the idea of bringing the highway through the New River Valley. That made the Salem lawyer - and eventual Republican legislator - the first person in the Roanoke region to inject I-73 into public discussion here.
Not long afterward, Martinsville businessman George Lester organized a group of business and political leaders along the U.S. 220 corridor to lobby for a Roanoke-to-Greensboro interstate, and latched onto I-73 as the best vehicle available. Roanoke public relations man John Lambert was hired to talk up the road. A phalanx of Roanoke Valley business and government leaders soon fell in behind the idea.
Lorinda Lionberger, the region's representative on the state transportation board, helped persuade the state to endorse an I-73 route through the Roanoke Valley. In Washington, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, and Rep. L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County, helped secure funding for the road in the House in 1994, although the measure died when the Senate adjourned without acting on it.
Neighborhood groups - led by lawyer-turned-sheep farmer Debbie Dull and artist Robin Boucher in the New River Valley and Tammy Belinsky, Alan Gleiner and Diane Rosolowsky on Bent Mountain - loudly opposed bringing I-73 through their communities, or bringing it through Western Virginia, at all, and besieged officials with letters, phone calls and faxes. The Bent Mountain group won their battle. In December, the Roanoke Valley Business Council - at the urging of Atlantic Mutual Cos. Senior Vice President Jim Arend and others - went on record opposing a route over Bent Mountain.
Instead, the council suggested the road follow I-581 through downtown Roanoke. Earlier this year, the state transportation board agreed, although North Carolina and Virginia were at odds over where the road should cross the state line. This spring, Ammar, the Bluefield businessman, floated the idea of building two interstates, an idea that state Secretary of Transportation Robert Martinez embraced. Later, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., who heads the Senate subcommittee that handles highway funding, negotiated with Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., to work out the deal, and write it into the Senate's highway bill. Now, it's up to Goodlatte and Payne to shepherd the route through the House, and see if they can again secure funding.
ROANOKE EXPRESS
In mid-March 1993, the roof had literally caved in on minor-league professional hockey in Roanoke. The Great Blizzard of '93 had left the Vinton LancerLot in shambles. The rest of the damage had been inflicted by new club owner Larry Revo, whose infamous Roanoke Valley Rampage entry averaged an East Coast Hockey League record-low 1,450 fans a game in 1992-93.
Hockey was on the road out of town when Revo decided to take his club to Huntsville, Ala. But in an 11th-hour power play, trucking magnate John Gagnon and former Roanoke Valley Rebel hockey player-turned-restaurateur Pierre Paiement saved the game for Roanoke. Gagnon and Paiement, with the help of longtime local hockey baron and oilman Henry Brabham, surprisingly were granted a '93-94 franchise by the ECHL. With a huge assist from Roanoke City councilman Mac McCadden, Gagnon and Paiement were able to strike a deal to play in the 8,373-seat Roanoke Civic Center.
The rest is history. The club has flourished on and off the ice its first two seasons, making the playoffs two straight seasons and averaging more than 5,000 fans a game.
TOUR DUPONT
In May 1993, localities all over Southwest Virginia were snickering at the Roanoke Valley for its failure to take interest in the Tour DuPont. The nation's premier cycling event cruised from Lynchburg through Bedford, Botetourt, Alleghany and Bath counties.
While it bypassed Roanoke, it made stops at The Homestead and in Blacksburg, where East Coasters Cycling and Fitness manager Mike Matzuk, an avid bicyclist and a member of the town's sidewalks and bikeways committee, led the effort to bring the Tour to town.
Matzuk was helped by Town Manager Ron Secrist and other members of the community, but it was obvious that he was the major force behind bringing the event to Blacksburg when the town awarded him its Distinguished Citizen Award last year for his efforts. Since that first year, the Tour has returned to Blacksburg twice for stage finishes, and Tour organizers have repeatedly mentioned that the interest and fan support they find in Blacksburg is as good as any stop on the Tour.
In 1993, however, Roanoke City Councilman Mac McCadden was steamed and berated city leaders for their lackadaisical attitude toward attracting such events as the Tour DuPont, which was broadcast in more than 70 countries and would have had an estimated economical impact of $2 million.
McCadden launched a crusade and in September 1993 learned the Roanoke Valley would play host to the Tour DuPont's first mountain time trial, a 23-mile course that winds through Roanoke City, Roanoke County and Salem.
McCadden formed a nonprofit company (Cycle Roanoke Valley Inc.) for the sole purpose of organizing the valley's involvement in the Tour DuPont. The Cycle Roanoke Valley executive board worked to raise funds, secure hotel rooms and meals, and promote awareness of the event, which rolled through the valley May 9, 1994.
Among the board members who made the event a success and helped bring it back for 1995: Brian Duncan, assistant director of economic development for Roanoke County; Donnovan Young, project manager at Shenandoah Life; Laban Johnson, special events coordinator for the city of Roanoke; George Clemo, lawyer with Woods, Rogers and Hazlegrove; Bill Carder, general manager of the Radisson-Patrick Henry; and Pete Lampman, president of Virginia Amateur Sports.
BLACKSBURG ELECTRONIC VILLAGE
The words, "Blacksburg Electronic Village," first hit the newspaper Jan. 18, 1992, when Bob Heterick, then the vice president for informational systems at Virginia Tech, talked of making Blacksburg the first town in the country to be completely linked by fiber optics.
A few days later, it was announced that Virginia Tech, Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co., and the town of Blacksburg would be partners in a visionary experiment to link the town's residents and large student population together in a computer network that would be part of the worldwide network known as the Internet.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, a proponent of telecommunications reform, backed the project, and the town-Tech-telephone company triumvirate said it would help draw high-tech industry to the region.
Said Blacksburg Mayor Roger Hedgepeth: "We know what yesterday was, but tomorrow may not be what it used to be."
A year and a half later, BEV, run by Tech's project director Andrew Cohill, went on-line.
Now, 18 months after start-up, BEV has about 14,000 users. Bell Atlantic, which has invested $7 million in the project, has wired about 550 apartments with high-speed Ethernet connections, which makes using the network much faster than using it via modems. BizNet Technologies became the first business set up to help local businesses get their information on the network. The project has received media attention from the likes of NBC Nightly News, The Washington Post and a host of other publications.
SMART ROAD
Nine years ago, then-Roanoke Mayor Noel Taylor endorsed the idea of a road linking Roanoke to Blacksburg, thrusting the proposal into the limelight.
In 1989, Roanoke Valley business leaders headed by Rockydale Quarries Chairman Gordon Willis Sr. formed a group to push for the road. Others in the group included Roanoke public relations man John Lambert, then-Dominion Bank vice president Beverly Fitzpatrick Jr., then state transportation board member and Vinton insurance executive Steve Musslewhite; Roanoke economic development chief Brian Wishneff; Roanoke lawyer John Rocovich; Roanoke Electric Steel founder John Hancock (since deceased); Salem developer T.A. Carter; Blacksburg Mayor Roger Hedgepeth; and four Tech administrators - Charles Forbes, Tech's vice president for development and university relations; David Ford, associate vice president for facilities; Charles Steger, architecture dean; and Paul Torgersen, then the dean of engineering and now president of the university.
They were talking simply of a more direct route from Roanoke to Blacksburg. It was then-Roanoke County Supervisor Dick Robers who first mentioned the possibility of linking experimental technological and safety research on futuristic cars and roads to the road, and road backers quickly embraced the concept.
When Christiansburg and Blacksburg were at loggerheads over which highway project should have priority, the "direct link" or a U.S. 460 bypass, Musselwhite stepped in to negotiate a compromise.
Environmental activists, led by Blacksburg artist Robin Boucher, New River Valley Sierra Club chapter president Shireen Parsons, and former Federal Highway Administration lawyer-turned Eggleston sheep farmer Debbie Dull,have long opposed the road, though they did succeed in getting the removal of an interchange initially penned in for Ellett Valley.
In 1991, Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, helped get $5.9 million in federal funds dedicated to the smart road "demonstration project," money that was included in that year's federal highway bill that Sen. John Warner helped carry through his chamber of Congress.
Later, Virginia Tech took a more active role, setting up a Center for Transportation Research headed by Antoine Hobeika (who has since left) and hiring former state transportation Commissioner Ray Pethtel as a "transportation fellow" to lobby for the road.
Last year, Gov. George Allen pledged $10 million in state funds to build a 1.7-mile test bed portion of the road, in exchange for the state's and Tech's inclusion in a General Motors-led consortium of companies that eventually won a $150 million federal grant for smart car research.
by CNB