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

DATE: TUESDAY, July 20, 1993                   TAG: 9307200580
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DON'T SELL OUT A NATIONAL TREASURE

I and other North Carolina residents hope this will not happen. The statement by builder Len Boone that "What you are hearing from neighbors is, `Don't do it in my back yard' " is extremely shortsighted and lacking in vision and understanding.

Lynn Davis, who represents Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway, deserves a standing ovation. The Blue Ridge Parkway is indeed a national treasure and this "pristine rural area" must be preserved at all cost for posterity. That is the bottom line, regardless of arguments from developers and construction companies.

Have you forgotten or overlooked the tourist interest from all over America, and the native flowers, trees, birds and animals that will be destroyed? Little by little, we are losing our heritage in search of the almighty dollar.

I am a native Roanoker. My children graduated from Jefferson High School, and for many years I worked at Days Inn on Orange Avenue and in Christiansburg. During those days, people came from surrounding states just to enjoy the wonderful parkway year after year.

I implore the United States Park Service, Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway, local citizens and environmentalists to get behind this issue to save this land for our children's children.

In the '30s, my father drove a steamroller, building the road across the parkway mountains. Don't tear up what the generation before us worked so hard to preserve. After all, as the old hymn reminds us, "this is our father's world." ELIZABETH D. BOLICK GASTONIA, N.C.