Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 10, 1995 TAG: 9511100023
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-15 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: EMILY ROGERS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The town's Visual Enhancement Committee is counting on contributions from community members to honor Evans King, a former Christiansburg High School principal and Montgomery County Schools superintendent, with a garden on South Franklin Street.
The contributions will fund the "Evans King Garden" on an embankment in front of Christiansburg High School.
The cost of the garden, which committee members hope will feature trees and day lilies, is $16,000. A little more than $5,000 has already been raised.
That's where the committee chairperson, Alice Meyer, hopes the community will pitch in. Because King served so many people as principal and superintendent during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, organizers are hoping his former students will help repay him by contributing to this project.
Committee member Helen Sowder said they chose to recognize King, now 86 and retired, because he "has probably done more in this county in education than any other person."
King began his career in education in 1934 as a teacher in Ironto. He became principal of Christiansburg High School in 1940, but left a year later to serve in World War II. He was stationed in England as an instructor in the use of bomb sites, turret sites and gun sites. After returning from the war, King resumed his post as principal in 1949, where he remained until his appointment as superintendent in 1956. He served as superintendent for 11 years and retired from the school system in the early 1970s.
Committee members have been able to raise $5,306 in donations for the project in the past three months. Other people have donated time, including landscape architect Dale Huff, a graduate of Christiansburg High School and Virginia Tech, who designed the garden. Sowder has mailed more than 900 letters to students who graduated from the high school during King's time as principal.
Original estimates put the total cost of the garden at around $7,000. But contract bids came in $9,000 higher than expected. Organizers, anxious to get work underway, are planning to borrow money from funds that have been earmarked for median plantings for next year, with the hope that they'll be reimbursed by contributions.
Combining current donations with the borrowed funds will enable contractors to begin planting the trees and bulbs.
An account has been designated at the First National Bank of Christiansburg to receive donations. Checks should be made payable to the Visual Enhancement Committee of Christiansburg. Helen Sowder invites questions and comments. She can be reached at 382-3284.
by CNB