THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 30, 1995 TAG: 9506290209
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
BOB HUGHES, a Virginia Power lineman, has an especially good reason for stepping down as the volunteer chairman in his company's Virginia Beach office.
``Others need the opportunity to do these things,'' he says of the many hours he's spent coordinating projects, seeking donations of goods and materials and picking up the hammer or driving the truck himself when needed.
Coming from a lot of people, that reasoning would amount to a cop-out.
Coming from Hughes, it's an honest, straight-from-the-heart statement.
Volunteer work, in many forms, is a thread that runs through all the other important parts of Hughes' life: home, family, church and work.
The Kempsville area resident was honored by Virginia Power recently as an employee Volunteer of the Year, one of only 15 to be so honored throughout the company's system.
His list of community involvement reads like a ``What's What'' of volunteer work in the Tidewater area.
He's picked up the hammer more than once to build homes for Habitat for Humanity, manned the concession stand and driven the equipment truck for the Kempsville High School marching band and organized teams for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.
He's solicited donations of used linens from area hotels, then borrowed a company truck and spent three days picking them up and delivering them to a central location where they were sorted and passed on to homeless shelters.
He's organized Virginia Power employee groups to work the Shamrock Marathon, the Elizabeth River Run and the Neptune Festival.
When Kids' Cove was built, Hughes organized Virginia Power teams to help with the building.
He's also managed, on occasion, to get heat pumps donated for needy families and rounded up Virginia Power experts to install them.
Hughes is quick to give credit for his volunteer work to others, especially the support of his wife Melinda, son Robert, daughter Lauryn and stepdaughter Sharon Peebles.
``They're all supportive,'' Hughes said.
He's also quick to give credit to his co-workers and to Virginia Power.
``I've had a lot of support from the people I work with and the company has been real generous with their time when I needed it (for volunteer work),'' Hughes said.
That sentiment is echoed by other employees throughout the company. Eleven years ago Virginia Power organized an employee volunteer program to provide an effective way for the company's nearly 11,000 employees to make contributions of time and effort in their communities.
Since then company employees have contributed more than 1 million hours to a variety of volunteer projects.
One of the very active employee volunteers was Tommy J. Browne, a young co-worker of Hughes who died of brain cancer a little more than a year ago.
It is still hard for Hughes to talk about Browne who was a volunteer fireman as well as an active participant in many of the company-sponsored volunteer undertakings.
In working through his own grief, Hughes took on a project that would keep Browne's memory alive.
In the trophy case in the conference room at the company's Princess Anne Road location, there's a new plaque that will be presented to a local employee each year.
It's the Tommy J. Browne Volunteer of the Year award. The idea came from Bob Hughes. ``I think Tommy would have liked that,'' Hughes said modestly. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by JO-ANN CLEGG
``I've had a lot of support from the people I work with and the
company has been real generous with their time when I needed it (for
volunteer work),'' says Bob Hughes, a lineman.
by CNB