Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 26, 1992 TAG: 9203260192
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Wallace and Margaret Mitchiner Majure, who live at Smith Mountain Lake, will bury USAir pilot Wallace Majure II, in Wake County, N.C., on Friday.
Majure, 44, was at the controls of the USAir jet that crashed Sunday night at New York's La Guardia Airport, killing 27.
Dr. George McLeod Bryan of Winston-Salem, N.C., who married Majure's parents 50 years ago, will conduct the funeral at 2 p.m. Friday at Bryan-Lee Funeral Home in Garner.
"It's an unusual time," Bryan told The News & Observer of Raleigh. "They were excited, very high, anticipating a celebration, and now they're burying their . . . son."
Majure was born in Roanoke and spent part of his childhood in the Roanoke Valley. He went to school at Grandin Court Elementary School until age 9, when his family moved to Ohio.
He will be buried in the Mitchiner family cemetery, which is what their son would have wanted, the Majures said.
His mother said it seems right to bring her son back to the family's land.
"He loved the farm, he loved the trees," she said. "He learned to drive a car in that churchyard, right in New Bethel yard in my dad's old 1950 Chevrolet."
Majure, who lived in Marietta, Ga., had been a captain for USAir and Piedmont Airlines, which merged with USAir in 1989. Earlier, he was a pilot for Atlantic Southeast Airlines for two years and Western Airlines for one year.
He had 8,000 hours of Navy and civilian flying time; had flown USAir's Fokker F-28 Model 4000, the type that crashed Sunday, for two years; and also flew the Boeing 737 for the airline.
Majure spent his last night on a layover at Raleigh-Durham International Airport before flying to Jacksonville, Fla., and then to La Guardia on Sunday.
In addition to his parents, Majure is survived by a son, Wallace Majure III of Doraville, Ga.; and a brother, David Majure of Norfolk.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.