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

DATE: SUNDAY, December 26, 1993                   TAG: 9312260067
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Medium

IT REALLY WAS SANTA, . . . CHECK HIS ID

Then, he showed them his driver's license. Date of birth: 1256, 737 years ago.

"He did ask me, `Who is that, really?' " said Mark Kobelja of Kensington, Md., and father of 5-year-old Colin. "He said, `It's really a people, right?' He's not so sure, yet."

But this Santa, who visited the bedsides of the 109 children who spent Christmas Eve at the hospital, is really Kris Santa Claus Kringle.

He legally changed his name about 10 years ago, and it's on his real driver's license, his Social Security card, his checkbook and his IRS returns.

Kringle said he lives on his Veterans Affairs pension and uses any spare money he gets to pay for postage on return letters to children who write Santa.

Kringle said he is a Vietnam veteran who was humiliated and rejected after returning from the war. "But it made me determined to help people more," he said.

Many of the hospital's beds were empty. The hospital avoids scheduling anything but the most necessary procedures during the holidays, so that children can be home with their families.

The gifts Kringle distributed were supplied by Eva Culbertson of Virginia Beach. She called neighbors, relatives and friends, saying she wanted them to give gifts for the kids instead of herself this year.

Brandon Pierce, 4, of Virginia Beach was thrilled.

"He's been kind of upset," said his father, Jeffrey Pierce. Recovering from chemotherapy after removal of a brain tumor, the boy developed a fever and ended up in the emergency room this week. He needed a blood transfusion.

"He was afraid he wasn't going to be home and he wouldn't have Christmas," his father said. "This makes him happy."