Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 16, 1995 TAG: 9503160061
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
His first big day outside?
"Well, it's his second time," said Amanda Morgan, who'd tossed her own white high-tops aside. "We were out here yesterday."
And who could resist?
Here in the first warm week since Mitch Morgan's October birth, somebody's slipped a snapshot of summer into the New River Valley. The sky is blue, the bank thermometers in the middle of Blacksburg register over 70 degrees, and most of the region's 30,000 or so college students have evaporated with spring break.
The folks back home can't help but feel a tad smug.
"If they didn't go to nice weather - too bad," said Trey Fox, a Virginia Tech biology Morgan stranded in Blacksburg by homework and a job cooking at Pargo's.
"It doesn't feel like spring," said his buddy, graduate student Noah Gates. "It's more like summer."
Just then their friends pulled up, and the two headed off - cradling a volleyball en route to a nearby court.
Neither James Hunter nor Tanya Harvey, both seniors, have spent a summer in Blacksburg. They got their taste this week, where the average daily temperature has been nearly 16 degrees above March's usual 53.4 degrees.
None of their friends is around, the couple reported. But they've shared warmth and relaxation, "and we're not spending near as much money here," Hunter said.
Has it really been just a week since that freak snowstorm dumped six inches out in Giles? How long has it been since the Great Interstate 81 sinkhole opened wide? Both seem like fading frustrations magnified by gray skies that slow February and early March to an agonizing crawl.
Of course, it's only been two years since a blizzard waylaid students returning from spring break.
The lower branches of an oak on Tech's Drill Field clutched dead brown leaves Wednesday like a little old lady drawing her shawl close. But the daffodils insist on blooming in sunny patches of ground, the jackhammers ring out as workers complete campus construction projects complicated by crowded sidewalks, and four workers in the Tech bookstore sunned themselves during a late lunch.
"The only thing I know is, this won't last," said Linda Dove.
Or will it?
Though it might drop into the 50s by Friday, "The days below freezing are probably finished," said Blacksburg-based National Weather Service meteorologist Ken Kostura.
by CNB