Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 17, 1995 TAG: 9508180009
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANN DONAHUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Lifestyles of early Americans are faithfully re-enacted at the park, from those who braved the frontier to the pioneers who congregated in settlements near the Appalachians.
For many of the volunteers, it's a family affair.
Steve and Jeanne Miller were living in Massachusetts until last year. Steve managed a 25-acre nonprofit fruit and vegetable farm. They had seen a pamphlet on Explore Park, and when they moved to Virginia, they called and offered to volunteer their talents - and their draft horses.
Steve Miller leads the horse-drawn cart down Settler's Road from the frontier area to the Blue Ridge Settlement. The two horses, Del and Lady Di, are Suffolk Punch draft horses. Together, the horses weigh 3,400 pounds.
Jeanne Miller, who teaches during the week in Floyd County, on weekends re-enacts the role of a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse during the 1860s at the park's schoolhouse, which originally was located near the Blackwater River in Franklin County.
Site manager Ann Myer's son, Kyle, volunteers as a student in the schoolhouse, as do Ransom and Hannah, the children of the park's musical peddler, Curley Ennis.
Jeanne Miller said the schoolhouse was central to the community. "This was sort of its heart and soul."
In the frontier era, class would start at 8 a.m. and go until 4 p.m., Miller said. School was open between November and April of each year - after the fall harvest was complete and before spring planting began.
The schoolhouse was in use for 75 years, until 1935. Jeanne Miller learned some of the history of the schoolhouse by interviewing surviving graduates. A reunion of the last graduating class was held in 1994.
Laurie and Scott Spangler met when she first worked at the Mill Mountain Zoo between 1982 and 1987. They worked for five years at North Carolina Zoo and then returned to Virginia.
"We missed Virginia, so we came back," Laurie Spangler said. "It feels like home to me." Originally from Pennsylvania, she attended Virginia Tech, where she studied forestry and wildlife management. Scott Spangler was born and raised in this area.
While the Spanglers are "on loan" to Explore Park, both also work full time at Mill Mountain Zoo. Both places needed someone to take care of animals and interact with the public, according to Laurie Spangler. "We were at the right place at the right time," she said.
Both work in conjunction with the American Center for Rare and Endangered Species, a breeding program that is attempting to bring about some animal families for the park.
Five red wolf pups were born last May as a result of the breeding program. "I've always been interested in canines because they have such interesting social behavior," Laurie Spangler said. She said no more pups are expected this year.
Laurie Spangler showed off a garden behind Explore's Hofauger house that grows a sampling of the food settlers ate. Onions, lettuce, peas and other vegetables are grown from March until the end of the park's season.
Scott Spangler works at the Wray Barn, where "minor breeds" of animals are kept. Minor breeds are animals that are no longer used commercially like they were 150 years ago. Dominque chickens and Ossebay Island pigs live in the barn, and the eventual goal is to breed these animals to keep their genetic strains alive and pure.
With such a family atmosphere, there's no wonder children in particular seem to love Explore Park. Adults playing dress-up? What kid wouldn't be amazed?
A father of three children looked on as his kids were enthralled by the rifle-firing frontiersmen. "They'd live here if I let them," the father said.
by CNB