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

DATE: FRIDAY, July 21, 1995                   TAG: 9507210037
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RETIRED FARMER GUY WALL WAS A MAN WHO CARED

Guy W. Wall, the retired dairy farmer and former member of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors who died this week, was concerned about the future of agriculture in a region where housing developments sprout where crops once grew.

Subdivisions flank several sides of the Wall family farm west of Blacksburg. In one sense it would have been easy for the family to sell its land and use the profits for an easier life than milking cows at dawn, said Charles M. "Mack" Wall, his son.

But the farm has been in the family for generations, and Guy Wall toiled to protect the legacy. "We plan to keep it that way," Mack Wall said. "Our roots are deep."

Wall, 76, died suddenly at his home Tuesday, the place he loved most. He is survived by Sarah Wall, his wife of 53 years, four children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

He turned the operation over to his two sons in 1973 and became involved in public affairs, always with a protective eye toward the role of farming in a changing county.

As a member of the Board of Supervisors from 1972-75, a representative on the New River Planning District Commission since 1972 and an officer of the county Consolidated Farm Service Administration, Wall "genuinely cared about farming, the agricultural industry and the people involved in it," said Shirley Roby.

"He worried about the land being taken up for urban development, concerned that farms would be put out of business," added Roby, who works at the local Farm Service Administration office.

Wall wasn't anti-growth, but he wanted farmers to get a fair shake, said Shirley Quesenberry of the Planning District Commission.

"He was trying to preserve what is necessary - and it is necessary," said Mack Wall.

Quesenberry and others recalled Wall as steady and soft-spoken gentleman of the old school. "He was a man of character and dignity," said Betty Thomas, Montgomery County's administrator.

Wall remained active in farm operations, despite heart problems, and had baled straw as recently as last week, his son said. "He was a person that enjoyed working."

His funeral will be held at 10 a.m. today at St. Michael Lutheran Church, just across Merrimac Road from the family farm.

by CNB