HOLIDAY-NAME FORUM MONDAY

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

DATE: SATURDAY, April 17, 1993                   TAG: 9304170038
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: New River Valley bureau
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
HOLIDAY-NAME FORUM MONDAY
An open forum on the issue of religion in the public schools will be held Monday night at Christiansburg High School.
The forum is sponsored jointly by two groups that took opposite sides in the recent controversy in Montgomery County over whether school holidays should have religious names.
The Christian Coalition supported returning to the use of Christmas and Easter. The Coalition for Community supported keeping the holidays as "winter" and "spring" break in recognition of the diversity of religious and ethnic groups in the county.
Other sponsors of the forum are: the Montgomery County Human Relations Council, the Montgomery County Public Schools, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the ministerial associations of Christiansburg and Blacksburg.
Monday's forum is designed to go beyond the holiday-naming issue in discussion of the proper place for religion in the Montgomery County school system.
Oscar Williams, a representative of the NAACP and director of the Institute for Leadership and Volunteer Development at Virginia Tech, will moderate the forum. The speakers:

Melanie Davis of Charlottesville, a lawyer with the Rutherford Institute, which is concerned with First Amendement issues.

Roanoke lawyer John Lichtenstein, representing the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League.

Rabbi Bonnie Margulis of the Blacksburg Jewish Community Center.

The Rev. Charles McHose, pastor of St. Paul United Methodist Church in Christiansburg.

Raylyn Terrell of Blacksburg, a member of the Christian Coalition.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB