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

DATE: THURSDAY, December 23, 1993                   TAG: 9312230292
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MELANIE S. HATTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PHOTOGRAPHS PAY TRIBUTE TO LOCAL HEROES

To Somers Bailey, who worked at First National Exchange Bank, where Addison was a customer, "She was the breath of dignity."

Anne Somers-Bailey, a substitute teacher with Roanoke city schools, recalled her father's comment about the first principal of Harrison High School when she attended a reception for the exhibit at William Fleming High School in October.

Addison's graceful image is one of 30 photographs of community leaders, educators and institutions in a collection assembled by the Harrison Museum of African American Culture and the Roanoke Valley History Museum.

It was designed as a traveling exhibit for Roanoke Valley schools with the purpose of connecting young people with people - past and present - "who contributed to the quality of life in the Roanoke Valley," said Melody Stovall, executive director of the Harrison Museum.

It was important to get the pictures out of the museums and into the schools where children could have more access to them, she said.

But learning doesn't only come from reading the captions beneath each photograph. It comes from the teachers who remember the faces from the past and know the faces from the present.

A few days after the reception, Fleming guidance counselor Wanda Spraggins and history teacher Michael Cooper stood in the media center where the exhibit was held. Spraggins pointed to the photograph of the late Hazel B. Thompson, who was a teacher for 47 years and said, "I can see myself sitting in her class at Lincoln Terrace.''

"Don't you remember going down to the library and seeing" Virginia Y. Lee? Spraggins said to Cooper. Lee, a librarian at Gainsboro Library, died last year and is featured in the exhibit.

"I sure do," said Cooper, whose mother also worked at the library. He spent a lot of time there as a child: "That was my nursery."

The exhibit includes photographs of Mattie L. Cocke, president of Hollins College from 1901 to 1933; the Roanoke police force before 1915; the Norfolk and Western band in the 1890s; George Lawrence, a Roanoke lawyer and politician; and present-day leaders including former Mayor Noel Taylor.

Stovall said the exhibit will visit area schools for as long as there is a demand for it.