Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 23, 1995 TAG: 9508230049
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Tuesday morning, during what was intended to be a pep rally to welcome the 800 Montgomery County School teachers to a new school year, School Board Chairman Roy Vickers spoke twice. The first time, his planned speech circled around hats; his second speech, unplanned, dealt with politics.
In his first speech, Vickers explained that he likes to use props when speaking to audiences. He waved around several baseball caps, adorned with Montgomery County school logos.
He said he likes to hand out the hats to, among other people, local legislators as a kind of reminder when school funding legislation comes around.
Vickers handed a hat to one of those potential legislators: Montgomery County Board of Supervisors Chairman Larry Linkous. Vickers had invited Linkous to attend the welcoming ceremony Monday afternoon.
Linkous, Vickers told the crowd, was running for the 12th District House of Delegates seat. Linkous was a close friend, Vickers continued, whom he admired "almost like a hero."
The props and the comments about Linkous didn't seem to faze the audience. As Vickers' speech wandered from Mickey Mantle to Virginia Tech sports, teachers wrote daily lesson plans for school or talked among themselves.
During a break in the meeting, a School Board member (whom Vickers would not identify) alerted him to a policy adopted by the board 10 years ago, which states: "Employees ... may solicit support for political candidates or political issues only outside regular work hours, off school property."
So, just before the meeting ended, Vickers stood up again, this time to explain that he had not read the policy before introducing Linkous.
He said he also had invited Del. Jim Shuler, Linkous' opponent.
"If he had been able to come, I would have tried to say cute things and give support for what [Shuler's] done," he said to the crowd.
Later, Vickers admitted he had been a bit overzealous in his support for Linkous.
He said his intention was to let the teachers see who their representatives are or could be.
by CNB