ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 3, 1996 TAG: 9609030018
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA STAFF WRITER
Walk among the oaks and pines and pasture grasses of the Selu Conservancy and one will hear the steady music of insects and smell breezes sweetened by the aroma of apple trees.
This place awakens the senses.
That is exactly what the sages of Radford University and benefactors of the conservancy envisioned for the 376-acre tract partially bordering the Little River in Montgomery County.
Radford University began its wish list for the conservancy a short time before the first donation of 165 acres was made by John Hargrove Bowles of Los Angeles. A few years later, four of Bowles' North Carolina cousins donated the remaining 191 acres.
Seven years into the project, early visions are ripening, including the construction of a retreat center - an add-on log frame structure - designed to blend with the surrounding rural culture.
Jerry Hutchens, executive director of the Radford University Foundation Inc., said the entire cost of the retreat center is being paid by private donations. Fund raising began about four years ago to garner the $400,000 needed to build the more than 4,000-square-foot building.
The retreat center will house two dormitories able to accommodate 24 people, a kitchen and three conference rooms. Other plans for the land include walking trails and a handicapped-accessible dock and boat livery to be created near "Cracker's Neck" on the Little River.
Hutchens said, if all goes as planned, the retreat center will be dedicated in April 1997. The development, he said, has not been rushed.
"As we moved through it, it could have been faster but we wanted it to be a learning experience," Hutchens said.
Students from several departments already have taken advantage of the land's lessons.
Perhaps the most evident work performed by students is the restoration of a corn crib and smokehouse. The structures were built in the 1920s and rebuilt recently by volunteers from the Appalachian Studies program.
Under the tutelage of Thurlowe Scudder, who now teaches at Ferrum College, students hand-hewed logs to replace those rotted by time and the elements. Together they notched and stacked the logs and left their construction site with a taste of what life must have been like for the families that once lived off this land.
Grace Edwards, director of Radford's Appalachian Regional Center, called Selu (pronounced say-loo) "a cultural studies laboratory." Prior to its creation, she said, her students learned about rural skills through slides and photographs.
"The gift of the conservancy has so expanded the opportunities we can offer our students; it's been marvelous," Edwards said.
Other departments have also taken advantage of the conservancy. The biology department cataloged the flora and fauna, geology students mapped the topography and environmental art students created art using the land's natural offerings.
Hutchens said all the student activity has not gone unnoticed by the neighbors. Who can fail to notice sights like writers penning their lines while sitting in trees?
One neighbor complained that he thought some type of Satanic ritual was being held on the property when an artist was seen gathering cow bones scattered by time and scavengers, Hutchens said. The artist's objective was to place the bones back in their original form, photograph them and then replace them where she had found them.
Another artist's work stirred rumors of UFOs, Hutchens said. What actually happened was a student scaled a tree that gave him a bird's eye view of a hill. He took a photograph. Then, from a carefully planned sketch, the artist cut a pattern in the hill's landscape. A view from the same tree he scaled before revealed his work.
The mysterious pattern that must have seemed to emerge overnight fueled the idea of some alien intervention, according to Hutchens.
But Hutchens noted the conservancy neighbors have been extremely involved and supportive of the university's plans. One neighbor farmer agreed to donate harnesses worn by mules that tilled the conservancy's soil in the '20s. That donation would be one among many that may eventually fill a living history museum planned for the site.
A graduate student incorporated the heritage of the local people by writing an oral history of the conservancy comprised of interviews with scores of previous landowners and their descendants.
Hutchens said the conservancy, located just 41/2 miles from campus, has been a definitive plus for the university in its quest to carve a unique niche. The retreat center will be the only one of its kind in the state and may eventually be used by groups outside the university community.
Hutchens said the first priority is to complete the retreat center and hire an on-site director. Finding a director should be no problem.
"We put an ad in a magazine asking for donations;" Hutchens said, "we didn't get any donations but we got 15 applications from people who wanted to work [at Selu]."
Donations for the conservancy can be made through the Radford University Foundation, (540) 831-5108.
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. ALAN KIM STAFF The Selu Conservancy retreat centerby CNBunder construction is a log add-on structure that is supposed to
blend in with the surroundings. color
2. A group of Appalachian Studies students at Radford University
helped rebuild two log structures that were part of a homestead on
the property. The locally felled logs were hand-hewn at the site and
assembled. In the foreground is the granary and in the background is
the smoke house. color
3. ALAN KIM STAFF Jerry Hutchens, executive director of the Radford
University Foundation, talks about the plans for the Selu
Convervancy property. The barn in the background will remain as is
and be used for storage. color
4. map- showing location of Selu conservancy color STAFF