ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 25, 1997 TAG: 9704250034
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER
Pulaski County people are eager for free Internet training.
Seventy-seven Pulaski County residents had signed up for Internet computer training as of Wednesday in the Pulaski County Internet Connection program.
The county group got grants from the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology and Appalachian Regional Commission to buy computers for public access and to cover training costs.
The idea was to train 10 people at a time, and then to have those people each train 10 others, so the ability to use the information superhighway would spread throughout the county.
But the response for the free training has gone beyond what was anticipated, said Barry Matherly, co-chairman of the county organization with County Administrator Peter Huber.
Matherly, who is economic development director for the town of Pulaski, told the Economic Development Board executive committee Wednesday that donations for computers will allow more public-access terminals than planned. The grant money would cover eight, but now there may be nearly a dozen.
Two already are available - at the Pulaski County Public Library in Pulaski and the Free Memorial Public Library in Dublin. Future sites will include the municipal buildings in both towns, the Pulaski Senior Center and the Pulaski YMCA.
"We're hoping that this will spur more people to get interested in it," Matherly said. Although other towns in Southwest Virginia have developed or are working toward "electronic villages," he said, "ours is kind of neat because we're working on a whole county."
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