Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509180089
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER NOTE: Above
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Now it can be told: One of the largest gifts Virginia Tech has ever received came last year from the estate of Roanoke real estate developer and philanthropist Horace G. Fralin.
As part of Saturday's festivities, Tech disclosed that an $8.4 million donation, first announced a year ago, came from the Fralin family, longtime supporters of the Blacksburg university.
This fall, Tech will dedicate a new biotechnology center beside the Drillfield that is to be named after Horace Fralin.
Part of the money from the gift has gone to buy equipment for the new center, which is bringing together researchers in biotechnology from the university's colleges of Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine.
Another portion of the gift is paying for an outreach program targeted at high school biology teachers. The program, started this summer by center director Tracy Wilkins, exposes the teachers to state-of-the-art biotechnology laboratories and techniques.
Wilkins also talks about teaching about biotechnology. The idea is to generate interest and awareness in the field, an area in which Tech is a research leader.
"This was apparently, in Horace's later years, one of his great wishes: to see Tech expand in the area of biotechnology research as well as education," Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said.
The Fralin gift is in the same league as the $22 million from the Pamplin family of Portland, Ore., the $13 million from the late Roanoke philanthropist Marion Via, and the $11 million given more than two decades ago by the estate of John Lee Pratt of Fredericksburg.
Hincker said it was the fourth largest in Tech's history.
Fralin died at age 66 in January 1993. He graduated from Tech in 1948 with a degree in electrical engineering. At his death, he was the president of Fralin & Waldron Inc., a real estate development firm.
Over the years, he had been an avid Tech booster and served as president of the Virginia Tech Foundation until he was named to the board of visitors in 1992 by then-Gov. Douglas Wilder. His brother, W. Heywood Fralin, is filling that four-year board term.
Horace Fralin and the late James McComas, the former Tech president, were the driving forces behind the development of the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center. The year before Fralin's death, he received the Ruffner Medal, Virginia Tech's highest award for distinguished service.
by CNB