ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 2, 1996 TAG: 9610020043
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
LIKE THE steady expansion by European settlers into the American wilderness, Virginia's Explore Park has developed from a mere toehold in undisturbed woods into an interpretive historical park with exhibits growing in number and interest.
Things are hopping there now. The Taubman family's generous gift, announced this week, of $500,000 to build a welcome center, marks just the latest contribution by private donors to give body to the Explore idea.
That idea has changed over the years, adapting to fiscal limits and to conflicting expectations among those who envisioned the project as primarily a tourist attraction, an historic re-creation, an educational resource or a land preservation project. The park's development has incorporated all of these goals.
In fighting for support over the years, park planners have been prodded to make it more than a tourist spot to lure visitors from the Blue Ridge Parkway into the Roanoke Valley. That remains a primary mission, to be sure, aimed at boosting the economy not just of Roanoke County, where most of the 1,300-acre park lies, but of the entire valley.
Another mission, though, is to offer this region's residents the direct benefits of recreational and educational facilities. The same day the Taubmans' gift was announced, park officials were talking with area educators, trying to ensure that a planned education center is designed to suit teachers, who can use the park's natural resources and staff to help teach history and science and other subjects.
Like the welcome center, which is being donated in memory of Arthur Taubman, the education center is being built by private donors as a memorial to a prominent businessman - in this case, the late John W. Hancock Jr., an early and avid supporter of Explore.
The park's adaptive nature has grown in part from its unusual history as a public-private venture. The land itself, and access to it, has been provided by taxpayers. The state paid about $6 million to acquire the land, and Explore is a state park. Virginia contributed another $3 million, and the federal government gave $12 million, to build the Roanoke River Parkway, a scenic route that will connect the park and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
More federal money is expected to pay for a Blue Ridge Visitors Center on the river parkway, midway between the Blue Ridge Parkway and the park's entrance. Rep. Bob Goodlatte is working hard to see that happen.
But the 10 years of planning that created Explore were underwritten entirely by the private River Foundation. All the buildings are private gifts. The capital construction budget of about $2 million is funded by private donations, supplemented by admissions fees and gift-shop sales. The park's operating budget, about $1.5 million, is roughly half public/half private.
Is this any way to run a park? For Explore, forged amid controversy and state budget woes, it has been the only way. The living history park is living proof that, with persistence and flexibility, it can be done, and done well.
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