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

DATE: THURSDAY, December 16, 1993                   TAG: 9312160090
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

60 YEARS LATER, BRICKLAYER `FINISHES' HIS JOB

"That ain't the way we used to lay them," he said, unapologetically.

And Hamblin, 90, ought to know. He spent more than 50 years laying brick and stone, two of them laying the thousands of bricks that compose the old high school.

Hamblin, of Cloverdale, is the only bricklayer still living who worked on the school construction project, which started in 1923 and was completed in 1924.

It was only fitting that he would be asked to set the cornerstone of the now-renovated school, renamed the Jefferson Center.

"Well, I think it's mighty nice that they asked me," Hamblin said. "I don't mind doing it. I'm in good shape. I was up at the VA yesterday and they told me I was."

Hamblin - whose many-a-day sit-ups have been replaced with a stationary bicycle on doctor's orders - did more watching than work. He left the lifting of the heavy stone into place to his son Calvin and Wayne Rasnick, job site superintendent for Thor Inc. construction company.

But Hamblin could not resist getting his hands into a little mortar. He carefully troweled a bit around the stone before relinquishing the tool to his son.

"Here, you take it," he said. Invited guests - including government, school and business dignitaries, many of them Jefferson High School alum - seemed to understand.

The school had been vacant and slowly deteriorating for nearly two decades. With public and private money, it has been converted into a multipurpose facility that will house performing arts organizations, city offices and community service agencies.

So far, 14 tenants - including the Roanoke Symphony, Mental Health Services of the Roanoke Valley, the Roanoke Police Academy and Total Action Against Poverty's Head Start Center - have either moved or made plans to move into the $5.5 million center.

Voters approved $3.5 million in bonds to help finance the project. The Jefferson Foundation, the tax-exempt, nonprofit organization that spearheaded the project, is raising $2 million to help finance the rest.

The foundation has come within $185,000 of its goal, retired Judge Beverly Fitzpatrick Sr. said at Wednesday's ceremony. The foundation is committed to meeting its $2 million goal, he said.

The cornerstone, Fitzpatrick said, "is a symbol of new life."

For Hamblin, it was an opportunity to return to his lifelong profession and participate in a bit of Roanoke history.

He retired in 1966. But after a brief period of inactivity, Hamblin resumed work on a freelance basis - a patio here, a serpentine wall there. He "made a killing," he said.

Eventually, age forced him to stop, Hamblin said.

Now, "I set a cornerstone every once in a while. But that's it."