Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 1, 1994 TAG: 9403020193
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Gray March heralds the season of weirdo crimes: usually committed by those who didn't get out of town, often of the pent-up domestic variety that are icky to read about but probably won't spread to the streets. They end in May or June or July - whenever "spring" finally shows up.
If we stopped now and declared a moratorium on our own icy war stories, we'd see a much more cheerful stamp of regional escapism unique to those of us spending March in the New River Valley. This weekend, more than 30,000 students depart our midst to commence spring break.
Let us join in solidarity with the university mindset, don shorts every day the sun shines, and declare spring officially sprung.
There's a group of 12 from Radford University who won't be hitting the beaches of Fort Lauderdale (or wherever students descend these days ), and they'll no doubt appreciate our can-do affirmation of spring.
They're going to Floyd.
In a two-credit-hour operation similar to Alternative Spring Break, these students will take the Habitat for Humanity approach to vacationing. In the process, they'll help four elderly women who live alone.
The women could use it.
One 90-year-old lady's been drinking nothing but soda pop forever because shrubs and weeds have overtaken her spring - the drinking water variety.
One had a new oil burner put in her home last year, and couldn't put her house back together again after the workers left.
The students will try to rig the spring so water gets to the house, paint a few walls, reorganize disorder. ``We don't want to leave anything half-done,'' says the leader of the project, Radford University professor Nelda Pearson.
The program is something of a spin-off of the wildly successful Alternative Spring Break that takes place down in the little town of Ivanhoe, where students arrive from as far away as Pennsylvania.
Pearson is still putting the final touches on the program, working through a new organization called the Floyd Emergency Task Force. (Good timing for such a group, given recent stories of stranded residents who suffered when their ice-strangled power went out for a week). Part of the effort includes the community's end of the deal.
"We want the community to participate in more than just saying, 'Yeah, you can come in here and work,'" said Pearson.
On the wish list: Evening programs featuring native stuff such as bluegrass performances or lectures on Floyd history. Also, the group may need housing.
The program's funded through a $2,500 faculty development grant funneled down from the Radford Foundation.
Back in October, ignorant of Virginia Tech's free visitor parking passes, I got a parking ticket the first time I went out there to do an interview. Figures.
As happens when you move two times in two months, change states, and reorganize life, things like parking tickets are blissfully overlooked. Opened my mail last week to a blazing reminder: they were coming after my good credit history if I didn't pay - and quick.
The day before they were coming to take me away, I picked up my phone at home, called the Tech police station, asked where to pay the ticket. They sent me to the little parking office over on Southgate Drive, I didn't have the ticket with me, so the nice lady there made a couple of calls and sent me back over to the second floor of Burruss Hall - the administrative stronghold where students dread to tread.
Went to Window 8. Nice guy, but he couldn't take my money without a copy of the bill. He sent me to Window 4. Nice woman, but she couldn't take my money - only print the bill. She sent me over to Window 7 with the whole package, where another nice woman rolled her eyeballs at the bureaucracy of it all. She was not able to confirm some information I picked up in my little journey, but, for what it's worth, I pass it along to you.
According to the guy at Window 8, bona fide Tech visitors who illegally park in student, staff and faculty spaces can usually have their ticket bills voided - unless, as I did, they put money in a parking meter that expires. (Or fill handicapped spaces, or those reserved for emergencies.)
Now, this is not to say that I encourage illegal parkers to inundate the second floor of Burruss Hall. I'm not even suggesting one illegally park to begin with, or that this voiding business will work for you - especially if you've illegally parked before.
I'm just passing along a little springtime FYI.
by CNB