Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 27, 1995 TAG: 9508280121
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Furthermore, we feel that the suggested substitution for a for-profit facility for the existing non-profit unit at Radford can only mean further dilution of patient medical fees to cover taxes, corporate profits and the like without fielding commensurate benefits in exchange.
Roger Hill, Bobbie Hill
Blacksburg
\ Help parks get new equipment
The Montgomery County Department of Parks and Recreation has done an outstanding job for the residents of the county for the past 21 years.
Lets return the favor! The playground equipment in Montgomery County Park is [more] than 20 years old and needs to be replaced. Between all the good people, businesses and organizations in the county, I would hope that enough donations could be made to buy the new needed equipment.
This would make present and future generations of children happy for years to come, what could be more worthwhile? What better investment in our future is there than our children?
All donations are tax donations and can be made by making out your check payable to: treasurer of Montgomery County, "Donations for Playground Equipment." The address is: Montgomery Parks and Recreation, 410 County Road, Christiansburg, Va. 24073. Or call the department at 382-6975.
The next time you see kids laughing and playing in the park, carefree and oblivious, maybe you will feel good and step a lighter.
Thanks.
Vic Ham
Elliston
\ Extra duties are too much
After 30 years of driving the school bus for the children of the McCoy-Prices Fork sections of Montgomery County, I have turned in my keys. Due to a new policy instituted by Dr. Herman Bartlett, superintendent of Montgomery County Schools, all drivers are now required to drive double routes each morning and afternoon with no increase in pay. This has caused me to re-evaluate the job. Since I also work as an auto mechanic at my family's auto repair garage, I have had to quit as the double route would keep me behind the wheel for close to six hours a day. For $45 per day, it just doesn't measure up.
But pay is not the real issue. I have driven the bus longer than most people living in McCoy and Prices Fork can remember. I have always enjoyed driving the bus and chauffeuring the children around. But now after 30 years of loyal service, instead of being shown a little appreciation by supervisors, I am being asked to give more than a patient man can handle. And it hurts.
I drove my first route back in 1954, at age 15 for $8 a day while attending school. For 30 years I have never had an accident, driving thousands of young school children on that big yellow bus. Parents felt secure knowing I would get their children to the school safely, because I had also driven many of them to the school house when they were children.
But these facts evidently weren't worth much to the Montgomery County School Board administration. I was four years shy of being able to retire from bus driving. I only wanted some consideration shown to the fact that the McCoy/Prices Fork bus route is one of the, if not the, longest routes in the county, and making it into a double run just doesn't make sense.
Bartlett offered to allow me to keep his route a single run route, but for half the pay, or $22.50 a day. I resigned.
Who will want to put up with the hassle for next to nothing in compensation? Bus drivers have never received any type of benefits and only started receiving sick days about six years back.
I am not out to pick a fight with the School Board System, or with Bartlett. I have loved driving a bus for 30 years and have mixed emotions about stepping down.I want to let the people of the McCoy and Prices Fork areas know that I will not be driving when the yellow bus pulls up to the stop Monday.
Tommy McCoy
Blacksburg
\ Who do teacher unions help?
I noted in your Aug. 16 issue that the political action committee of the New River Education Association has shelled out $1,500 each to Sen. Madison "Good ol' boy" Marye and Del. Jim Shuler for their re-election campaigns. That was a foregone conclusion and hardly a news item.
Teachers' unions (or at least the leaders of these teachers' organizations) have less interest in educating students than in politicking for their own benefits. And they do this under the guise of improving our educational systems and producing a higher quality product. What baloney! Year after year, the high schools graduate kids ignorant of history, geography and civics and who can't read, write or reason with any degree of proficiency.
As so many "Johnnys" can't read, it follows that far too many teachers can't or don't know how or what to teach. They have spent too much time learning the methodology of teaching and not enough time becoming knowledgeable in the subject matter.
If the teachers' union that calls itself the New River Education Association is truly interested in imparting knowledge, they would do well to look inward for the solution and not go cackling off after candidates who say only what the NREA leaders want to hear. Such candidates think big bureaucratic government (controlled by themselves, of course) will solve all problems social, racial and economic.
R.K. Culbertson
Blacksburg
Memo: ***CORRECTION***