Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 5, 1994 TAG: 9403050124
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Hancock died Thursday afternoon after what was described as "a very brief illness" and was buried after a private service Friday morning. In keeping with his penchant for privacy, Hancock had insisted before his death that few outside the family be notified until after Hancock he was buried.
Hancock got his start selling Quonset huts in a housing-starved economy after World War II and went on to found Roanoke Electric Steel in 1955, a company that made him a multimillionaire.
But Hancock's greatest influence was as an organizer of, and contributor to, civic and political causes, a passion that he pursued up to the end.
Roanoke Mayor David Bowers called Hancock "one of the most influential behind-the-scenes civic and business leaders of our community. He was the kind of fellow who could move mountains."
Warner Dalhouse, chairman of First Union National Bank of Virginia, described Hancock as "a giant of a leader in Roanoke Valley history."
"We will not see his like again," predicted Del. Richard Cranwell of Roanoke County. "I suspect he has had as much impact on the Roanoke Valley in the past 25 years as anybody. With any major civic project, he has been there."
Hancock was mourned throughout the state.
"For so many of us, he personified Roanoke leadership," said Lt. Gov. Don Beyer, one of the many successful political candidates Hancock supported as he crisscrossed party lines over the years. "Whether it was Explore or the Hotel Roanoke or Virginia Tech or the smart highway, Jack Hancock was there - and those are just the battles of the last five years."
Indeed, Hancock first put his civic mark on the valley four decades ago.
In the 1950s, he helped organize Roanoke's first industrial park after the American Viscose fiber plant closed suddenly and threw the valley into an economic panic.
And in 1960, Hancock played a little-known but critical role in persuading white-owned restaurants in Roanoke to accept their first black customers.
"He was a public man in a private way," former Gov. Gerald Baliles said.
One telling sign of Hancock's enduring interest in public affairs: He always kept a small television in his office tuned to Cable News Network.
As news of Hancock's death spread across the state Friday afternoon, his friends reflected on the remarkable vigor he possessed for a man his age.
"I'm stunned," Baliles said. "I thought he would live forever."
"Jack Hancock was the youngest 89-year-old I've ever known," Beyer said.
What made Hancock so remarkable was not his physical energy, though, but his mental stamina.
Where many older people tend to reminisce about their accomplishments, Beyer said, "Jack always talked about what was coming. I've never seen an older person so oriented to the future."
"Jack Hancock just had a zest for life," said Doug Cruickshanks, a Richmond banker who was in Roanoke in the 1980s and headed the group promoting the Explore Park, of which Hancock was a key benefactor. "Here was a guy in his 80s planting oak saplings."
Hancock, who worked out of a small office in the Patrick Henry Hotel in downtown Roanoke, remained active with the company he had founded - a company that now employs 1,000 workers and sells about $150 million worth of steel each year.
"At 89, he still had a great vision for Roanoke Electric Steel," said Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen, who sits on the company's board of directors.
But what Hancock's friends remembered most typically had more to do with his personal interests than his business dealings.
They marveled that as an octogenarian, Hancock mastered the computer - which he used, among other things, to keep track of the cattle on his Franklin County farm.
"This wasn't an aide of his," Cruickshanks said. "This was Jack Hancock himself, saying, `Computers are what's going on, and I need to get one.' He had everything on his cows in there. He could tell you their birth weight, which breed, what their calf characteristics were."
"How many 89-year-olds do you know who can negotiate their way through Windows?," Beyer asked, referring to the computer program Hancock preferred.
Friends also pointed to something else Hancock did that summed up his approach to life: Well into his 80s, the widower remarried. And the couple kept it quiet, marrying in a private ceremony in Blacksburg, joined only by the minister, Torgersen and Torgersen's wife.
"He was a very private man who shunned the limelight," Torgersen said. Creating wealth
Hancock was born in 1904, the son of the general manager of Roanoke's streetcar company. He studied mining engineering at Virginia Tech, an institution that became one of his greatest loves, and attended the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania.
For 15 years, Hancock sold securities at a New York investment banking firm. But World War II intervened, and Hancock joined the nation's budding air corps - where he became a lieutenant colonel.
Returning to Roanoke after the war, Hancock went into business for himself, selling Quonset huts, lawn mowers, sprinkler systems and metal windows.
With the construction industry booming after the war, Hancock quickly expanded into manufacturing open-web steel joists used as supports for roofs, ceilings and floors. But when the demand for steel during the Korean War made it difficult to get shipments from Pittsburgh, Hancock decided to build his own steel mill.
The experts scoffed, warning that the big steel companies would squeeze his "minimill" out of business.
They were wrong.
Minimills, which require a far smaller investment of money and manpower than big steel plants, have proved far more profitable than the giants in the face of stiff competition from overseas steel producers.
"His biggest contribution to Roanoke was the creation of Roanoke Electric Steel," said former Gov. Linwood Holton. "For every one dollar people invested, they got something like $100 in the next few years. The amount of wealth he created in the valley was just fantastic" - for himself and his investors.
With that wealth came influence, and from the 1950s on, Hancock was one of the valley's most prominent citizens, organizing fund drives for one charitable cause after another.
His two most visible legacies in the Roanoke Valley may be the Center in the Square arts complex and the Explore Park, a living-history park under construction in Roanoke County.
"There wouldn't have been an Explore Park without Jack Hancock," said park Director Rupert Cutler. "There probably wouldn't have been a Center in the Square."
Hancock also contributed $1 million to endow an engineering chair at Virginia Tech, where a new engineering building bears his name.
Torgersen described Hancock as "almost a mentor for me in the college of engineering" and called him "one of the most generous men I've ever met."
Hancock's generosity also extended to politics, where he financially backed both Democrats and Republicans.
One measure of Hancock's political influence was his famous Monday afternoon get-togethers with what he called "the boys," a group of fellow old-line Roanoke business leaders who met to sip cocktails and discuss public policy. Aspiring political candidates from around the state often arranged their schedules so they could drop by Hancock's South Roanoke home to be interviewed by "the boys."
Another sign of Hancock's power was his annual Christmas party, which routinely drew politicians from throughout the state. Even governors took time out from their schedules to attend. "My guess is Christmas in Roanoke won't be the same for a lot of people," Baliles said.
Principled and stubborn
But Hancock once said his greatest contribution to Roanoke was his role in Roanoke's peaceful integration of downtown lunch counters - an experience different from that of many other Southern cities.
"He was a lot more progressive than many people might have known," Baliles said. Hancock's liberal views on race relations may have stemmed from an incident during his school days at Virginia Tech, when one of his classmates - an Asian - was discriminated against.
"Something happened that offended him, and he decided then he would be open-minded," Baliles said. "I've always heard the story about how he was revulsed, and that set him on a course that served him well the rest of his life."
Hancock was as stubborn as he was principled. Once, while Hancock was trying to raise money for a new Salvation Army building, the president of First National Bank [now part of First Union] offered a contribution that Hancock considered puny.
Hancock responded by closing his sizable personal accounts. As Hancock later told it, he confronted the bank president and told him: " `It's going to hurt you, and it's going to hurt the bank,' and I walked out and didn't go back."
Another thing Hancock was insistent about was his low public profile - which continued even to his death.
"Jack was very secretive" about his health, Holton said. "I talked to him about 10 days ago and knew he'd been in and out of the hospital" with some lung problems.
On Tuesday, Hancock re-entered the hospital, Holton said, but "as of Wednesday, he was still insistent [that] he have his usual quota of vodka and ice."
On Thursday afternoon, though, Hancock "died very quietly," without any pain, Holton said.
Few outside the immediate family were notified until after the private funeral Friday morning.
"You've got to admire his sense of humor, because he fooled everyone," Holton said. "He said, `By golly, they're not going to have any folderol over me.' It's just typical Hancock. Totally independent."
Hancock is survived by his wife, two daughters, four grandchildren and one great-grandson.
Staff writers Mag Poff, David M. Poole, Rob Eure and Rich Martin contributed information to this story.
by CNB