ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 11, 1995 TAG: 9512110051
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: & now this...
Not many people get a key to the city when they come home from work. But coming home for most Roanokers does not mean traveling 38 hours from Pakistan - with a golden retriever.
Courtney Turner flew into Roanoke Regional Airport Nov. 30 with her dog, Bebek, after a two-year stint as vice consul in the U.S. consulates in Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan. She is a member of the U.S. Foreign Service.
Turner was greeted at the airport by family, friends and state Sen.-elect John Edwards, who presented Turner a key to the city.
Turner said last week that Edwards welcomed her home and commended her on her work in Pakistan as a representative of the U.S. government and Roanoke.
Turner's job required her to review applications for visas and offer assistance to American citizens visiting Pakistan who faced emergencies.
Turner, who holds a master of business administration degree from the University of Virginia, said she has always had the travel bug. The best way to learn about another country, she said, is to experience it firsthand by living there.
She lived in Germany as an exchange student from Patrick Henry High School and took her parents to India during a vacation from her job in Pakistan. Her dog's name was inspired by a trip to Turkey.
But working for the foreign service can mean hardships, which is why Turner said it takes a certain kind of person to enjoy the work and related stresses.
Those hardships are balanced by ``experiences that cannot be replicated here,'' she said.
She is home for 30 days before a six-month training session for her next assignment, in Rome. She will do the same work for her first year in Rome as she did in Pakistan, then do economic reporting the second year.
She has no plans to quit the foreign service as long as it remains ``fun, interesting and challenging,'' Turner said.
A steamy best seller
The first printing of famed photographer O. Winston Link's latest book of pictures of the Norfolk & Western Railroad, "The Last Steam Railroad in America," was so limited, even Link doesn't have a copy.
He had asked the staff at Ram's Head Book Shop at Towers Mall, where he appeared for a signing Dec. 2, to save 30 copies for him. But Link got left at the station with a few hundred of his fans, who came to buy the new book and have him sign it, only to find out there were none left.
"We sold 300 and could have sold a lot more," said Brenda Collins, a shop employee. Ram's Head had to scrounge for the copies it got, hauling them in from as far away as Connecticut.
In fact, the 300 it obtained probably were the last of the first printing of 10,000.
Link, who has arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome, was scheduled to sign from 1 to 3 p.m., but wound up staying until after 5 p.m., signing adhesive book plates and just about anything else people put before him.
Then he came back for several hours Sunday and Tuesday to sign still more book plates for the 200 people who ordered his book.
The good news is that Harry N. Abrams, the book's publisher, has begun a second printing of 20,000 copies, some of which should arrive at Ram's Head by mid-January.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB