ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 10, 1996 TAG: 9605100007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: CHANNEL SURFING
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
Roanoke native Sherrie S. Rollins has been promoted to executive vice president of network communications for the ABC Television Network.
Rollins, a former senior assistant to President George Bush, serves as the chief spokesperson for ABC and manages its media relations staffs.
She began her career in Washington in the early 1980s and was a senior aide in the Reagan-Bush campaign of 1984. She has managed public relations for numerous private and public institutions since then, including two years of service as Bush's assistant for public liaison and intergovernmental affairs.
Rollins, 37, is a graduate of the University of Virginia and sits on its alumni association's board of managers.
She is married to Ed Rollins, a former Republican campaign consultant.
They have a daughter, Lily, and live in Bronxville, N.Y.
Public radio station WVTF (89.1 FM) won four first-place awards in the regional news excellence competitions of the Radio-Television News Directors Association.
Those entries are now entered in the association's national competition among radio stations in the "small staff" category.
The station won awards for overall excellence; for spot news coverage of the flood of 1995; for continuing coverage of the 1995 Virginia General Assembly races and election; and for in-depth documentary coverage of the communities the station covers, said Rick Mattioni, news director.
The station competed with similarly staffed stations in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington.
Mattioni said he considered the overall achievement award one of the most significant of the 30 the station has won for news coverage in the eight years he has led the news department.
To win it, the station had to demonstrate that it "excelled in every aspect of radio news, including newscasts, spot news reporting, in-depth and] documentary reporting, features reporting, and public affairs programming."
In other news at WVTF, reporter Jay O'Neill is leaving the station to join the news team at New Hampshire Public Radio.
O'Neill will be anchoring local reports during the "Morning Edition" newscast and helping supervise a nine-person news staff.
After spending two years at WFIR-AM, O'Neill moved to WVTF 61/2 years ago. His move is not based on any dissatisfaction with the station, he said, but simply a result of "looking for other horizons."
Ben Vecchio has returned as a producer at WSET-TV (Channel 13) in Lynchburg, responsible for the station's commercials.
Vecchio was a producer at the station from 1992-94.
He is a Long Island native and 1973 graduate of the New York Institute of Technology.
Vecchio will be responsible for working with advertising clients as well as the production team in the creation of locally produced commercials.
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Sherrie Rollinsby CNB