ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, September 26, 1996           TAG: 9609260049
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-8  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER

2 NAMED TO TOURISM BOARD MARKETING GROUP IS IN ITS FIRST YEAR

Two Western Virginians have been appointed to the board of directors of the Virginia Tourism Corp., a new group created to promote the state and its attractions to visitors.

Carthan Currin, general manager of the Comfort Inn at Rocky Mount/Smith Mountain Lake, and former state lawmaker Barbara M. Stafford from Giles County were named to the posts last week.

The tourism corporation is a state-funded, nonprofit entity that replaced the state Division of Tourism, which disbanded June 30. The board functions like a corporate board of directors, setting policy and hiring key personnel.

Last year, tourists spent $9.97 billion and Virginia's industry to serve visitors employed 168,700 people, according to state estimates.

Currin, who will sit for four years on the 12-person board, wants the state to market its historic sites and the outdoors better. "We should do more to promote the mountains of Virginia. North Carolina has just been beating us to death," he said.

Currin has experience in marketing, having recently sold an outdoor advertising company, the Currin Advantage, of which he was president for the past seven years. Also, he served on the advisory board to the old tourism division in its last year.

Stafford's term runs through 1997. She is a former member of the House of Delegates and currently a member of the Pearisburg Town Council. According to a state biographical sketch, she sat on the Statewide Independent Living Council and the Blue Ridge Regional Education and Training Council and was one of hundreds of residents who helped draft Gov. George Allen's economic development plan, Opportunity Virginia.

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