ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 4, 1996 TAG: 9606040033
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: reporter's notebook
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN
A blind rabbit and a blind snake meet up in the forest. Neither knew what they were. They decide that each should feel the other and describe their features so each would know what they were.
The snake feels the rabbit's fur, cottontail and twitching nose and proclaims him a bunny. "Now, you do me," the snake tells the rabbit.
"Well, you're smooth, slick and you've got a forked-tongue," the rabbit tells the snake. "Holy cow! You're a lawyer!"
If laughing at yourself is healthy, then members of the Montgomery-Floyd-Radford Bar Association have long lives to look forward to.
The jokes and good-natured barbs flew once again Friday at the association's annual spring gathering. Each May, members gather at the Cumberlea property of Dick and Mary Alice Davis to celebrate the past year with good socializing, food and music. A short business session also is conducted, with brief remarks from an invited guest or two and the informal election of officers.
The snake joke came from Bud Neily, a Blacksburg lawyer and the group's representative to the Virginia State Bar who emceed the business part of the evening, recognizing special guests and judges.
"Dick said just say all the judges of Southwest Virginia who are worth anything are here," Neily said, but he took special care to recognize the area's newest judge, John Buck of Radford, who was appointed as a juvenile and domestic relations judge earlier this year.
Others in the crowd also recognized the presence of retired Circuit Judge Jack Matthews, 91, from Galax, who always makes it to the party.
Bob Altizer, a Tazewell County lawyer, spoke about his plans as the incoming president of the Virginia State Bar. He takes office later this month.
Altizer wasted no time in joining in the ribbing, looking across the crowd to outgoing president Mike Smith, who looked slightly out of place in the casually dressed crowd with his suit and tie.
"Now here is a Richmond lawyer," Altizer taunted. "We both flew down here but I used a car and he took a plane."
Altizer said he will make himself available to area lawyers, pointing out that he's a "small-firm practitioner. I am a general practitioner and the majority of practitioners in Virginia are just that."
Smith - whom Neily said was "educated in South Carolina [but] had the good sense to move to Southwest Virginia" - "did a lot to dismantle the Ivory Tower or at least do away with the idea that there was one" in the state bar, Altizer said.
He wants to build on that.
In the elections, Marilyn Buhyoff, senior vice president at the National Bank of Blacksburg, was installed as president of the Montgomery-Floyd-Radford bar for the coming year. Presidency is determined by length of membership in the bar.
Other offices are filled less formally. There's a time-honored tradition of returning most officers to another term or closing the nominations after one name is suggested, especially if they skipped the gathering. Fred Kellerman was returned as secretary, despite his cry of "what about the term limits," as was perennial treasurer Marshall Frank and veteran vice presidents Gino Williams of Floyd County and Patrick Moore of Radford.
Pete Beller becomes Montgomery County's vice president, replacing Christopher Tuck, who smartly moved the nominations be closed as soon as Beller's name was mentioned.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 linesby CNB