Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 28, 1995 TAG: 9509280016
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Most political challengers count themselves fortunate if surveys show half of voters know their name. Larry Linkous says internal polling indicates he has 90 percent name recognition in the 12th House District.
That figure may reflect the Republican candidate's 25 years of business experience and four years of elected office in Montgomery County. But it also stems from another factor: The challenger is from the heart of "Linkous Country."
"If you used to look at the mail boxes, about every other one in Merrimac was a Linkous," he says. The family, with roots going back 200 years in the New River Valley, is spread throughout the former coal mining and farming communities of Merrimac, Prices Fork, Long Shop and McCoy, rural places as stable and traditional as Blacksburg is transient and progressive.
"Growing up here should help me some in the election, simply because we do have that deep network of family ties; and not only family, but ties with a lot of the kids I went to school with around here that I've still kept in contact with," Linkous says.
Linkous is challenging first-term Del. Jim Shuler for the House seat representing Christiansburg, Blacksburg, northern Montgomery and eastern Giles counties. The closely watched contest will test Democrats' effort to make the election a mandate on Republican Gov. George Allen's agenda.
Linkous, though, says he sees serving in the House as simply another way to give something back to a community that's made his life's work a success.
The 42-year-old Linkous often speaks on the stump about how he chose to stay in Blacksburg rather than move away. He now lives in the 200-year-old Linkous home place, which sits across an open field from the home where he grew up. That local origin, combined with his businesses - first a butcher's shop he launched at age 20, then catering and auctioneering concerns - have put him into contact with a broad spectrum of society, he says.
"I have a good sense of what the larger number of people feel," Linkous says. "I'm not particularly connected with one group. I'm not connected with just the farming community or just the Tech faculty or just industry. I have good connections with all those groups."
Aside from business and family, Linkous has built local connections through public service. He was an appointee to the Montgomery County Planning Commission for five years, then won election to the county Board of Supervisors in 1991. He's been board chairman for two years, responsible for setting the board's tone and running its many meetings. He's also served in a diplomatic capacity, such as when he appeared before the Montgomery School Board last year to try to smooth out a dispute over consolidating finance departments.
In the past four years, the county has built two elementary schools and is planning a third one. It also has laid the groundwork for an industrial park in Christiansburg and has reached an agreement with Radford to share tax revenue from development in an area expected to grow if Radford Community Hospital wins approval for a new building.
The board's majority, including Linkous, has been conservative in both finances and land-use policy. Since 1992, it has approved only one major real-estate tax increase, that coming last year when there were no local elections. Linkous and other board members point out that spending for schools has increased steadily this decade. But school advocates wanted more this year, in particular, and were disappointed when the board wouldn't support even a modest tax increase.
The board did approve pay raises for county employees this year, but only after the employees publicly urged the board to do something to stop the exodus of workers to nearby jurisdictions with better pay scales. Two years ago, the board voted down a major initiative to provide developers with techniques to preserve open space as the county grows. Ever since, its members have been grappling inconclusively with whether to continue to be reactive or to be proactive in guiding the growth of rural subdivisions.
Linkous usually votes with the four- or five-vote majority on the seven-member board and has found he's had to face "some real tough decisions."
"When you're acting on a rezoning or a conditional use permit, it's often neighbor versus neighbor or family members versus each other," Linkous says. "That's one reason being a legislator may be easier. The issues aren't as personal to a lot of people."
There is one area that is personal to many in the district: support for Virginia Tech, given the governor's oft-stated intention to shrink the state bureaucracy. That's because the New River Valley, with the thousands of jobs at Tech and Radford University, has one of the highest concentrations of state employees in Virginia.
Linkous concedes that running as a Republican - he switched parties two years ago, something his opponents frequently bring up - will be a hard sell to many of those voters.
"It's a perception that's hard to break. If you're a Republican running for the Legislature this year, you're not someone who supports education. That seems to be the thought that's out there," Linkous says. "It's by no means true."
Linkous points out the long-term cuts to Tech's Cooperative Extension Service and that the university started under Democratic governors. Moreover, the votes last winter to restore funding to Extension and other Tech programs were bipartisan, not just the work of Democrats, Linkous says.
"I will support the district," he says. "State employees are such a large portion of this district that I'm going to have to do whatever it takes to support the state employees."
While Tech and other universities gained bipartisan support last winter, the proposed cuts to their budgets came from a Republican governor. So what happens if another round of cuts comes up and Linkous is just one vote?
"That's where we find out how good a salesman I am," he laughs. "You start lobbying your buddies in the Legislature; you start telling them what those cuts are going to do to your district.
"I don't think that's going to be as hard a sale as people think," Linkous says. He points to the numerous Tech alumni and supporters in the General Assembly he believes he can reach.
Though he often voices his support for higher education, Linkous never finished his college degree. He attended Tech for three years, then left when an opportunity to start his own business, Custom Meats, presented itself. He says he regrets never graduating, but believes he got a good education while there.
Both his grandfather and father were coal miners. When mining died out following World War II, his father, like many miners, went to work at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant.
The youngest of four siblings, Linkous started working at 15 in the meat department at the former Bluegrass Market in Blacksburg. He left Tech to keep and build the customer base when the longtime owner of the market retired and closed shop.
Linkous now runs auctions on weekends, and he and his wife, Charlotte, operate Custom Catering in Blacksburg. Linkous has a stepson who is a student at Radford University and a 13-year-old son who is a member of the eighth-grade football squad at Blacksburg Middle School, which the candidate proudly says is "the only undefeated football team in Blacksburg."
LARRY LINKOUS
Party: Republican
Age: 42
Occupation: Auctioneer, owns catering business
Residence: Blacksburg
Family: Married, two children
WHAT THE CANDIDATE SAYS ABOUT HIS:
CORE VALUES: "Your values are formed as you're growing up, and mine were very definitely formed towards family, a sense of family and how important that is. We need to keep our families together and do what it takes to keep them together." Linkous also says developing a sense of community and giving back to your neighbors through public service are part of his core values. "I want to give back to the community. That's one of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing."
INDEPENDENCE: The aggressive partisanship of recent years has made "a lot of people almost sick of politics in general," Linkous says. Last week he declined to sign the Virginia GOP's "Pledge for Honest Change," a seven-point program modeled after the national party's "Contract With America." Linkous and Pulaski County's Del. Tommy Baker were two of only 11 Republican candidates statewide who didn't take the pledge. "I'm going to vote independently. I'm going to vote the way this district wants me to vote. The people in this district want the representation to be that way."
VISION: "We're going to have to create jobs in order to have the good education we need for our kids. And we're very fortunate in this area that we don't have the crime problems that some of the other areas of the state have. That, I guess, could be a vision, that you would want to continue that and even see [crime] decrease and not let some of the problems that are in other parts of the state come into our areas. Through education and instilling family values in our children as they're brought up, they won't want to commit crimes."
Keywords:
POLITICS PROFILE
by CNB