
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 7, 1990                   TAG: 9004070342
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

TECH SPIRIT PRAISED ON FOUNDER'S DAY

It was a longtime president of the University of Wisconsin - the same man whose grandmother raised Robert E. Lee's horse, Traveller - who best exemplifies the founding principles of Virginia Tech: a commitment to public service, teaching and research.

At least that's the opinion of Robert O'Neil, the departing University of Virginia president who delivered Tech's Founder's Day address Friday.

E.B. Fred, a 1907 graduate of Tech, enjoyed a storied history in higher education, inspiring two generations of scholars and remaining an active scholar well into his 80s.

Wisconsin observers, O'Neil said, constantly were struck by how faithfully Fred reflected his Loudoun County roots, "his old Virginia charm and stateliness."

Fred's prowess with lawmakers was legendary. Whether it was securing the funds for a new library - he once told a Joint Finance Committee that "You can't run a 40-cow farm with a 20-cow barn" - or defying the post-war communist hunter, U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

"At the height of McCarthyism, [Fred] eloquently defended the right of [Wisconsin] students to hear a campus speech by the editor of a Communist newspaper," O'Neil said.

"E.B. Fred was a very special kind of person. It takes a very special university to produce that sort of person - and this is such a university."

Whatever the challenge, it was Fred's Virginia upbringing and Tech education that armed him for the rapidly evolving 20th century, for several "tomorrows."

And it's to the future that the 118-year-old state university remains committed, President James McComas told the faculty, students and parents assembled in Burruss Hall.

"Tomorrow belongs to the 77 National Merit Scholars of this year's freshman class," he said. "Tomorrow belongs to the Fred Krimgolds [a Tech architecture professor] who can see all the way to Armenia. And to the engineers who can see Antarctica. And to instructors who can see the one quiet student in the back of the classroom."

But Friday belonged to 34 of the school's alumni, faculty, students and staff who were honored for their service and scholarship - the expressed purpose of the annual Founder's Day festivities.

by CNB