Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 27, 1995 TAG: 9503270049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Retirement has meant more than a rocking chair for Byron Yost, who until December was Roanoke-area president for First Union Bank of Virginia.
Yost, 55, said he has averaged running more than 50 miles a week since ending his 32-year banking career.
Now he has qualified for the Boston Marathon on April 17.
He accomplished this by running in the Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach. He finished the 26.1-mile race in three hours and 29 minutes, besting the 3:35 Boston qualifying time for his age group. Yost was in the top 20 percent of all runners, estimated to number 1,600.
Yost said running in the Boston Marathon has been his personal goal for many years, but until his retirement, he hadn't had time for the necessary training.
He was founding director of Roanoke's top running event, the First Union Festival Classic, which will be held June 3.
Help wanted
The Roanoke County-Salem Health Department's attempt to find volunteer health inspectors has failed again.
"We were able to find three volunteers who went through the training program, but because of schedule conflicts, they were unable to help," said Richard Tabb, acting environmental health manager for the Alleghany Health District.
The department began its search for volunteers last fall after it suffered budget cuts and a shortage of inspectors. The goal was to sign up eight volunteers - four with science backgrounds to help with inspections of restaurants in Roanoke County, Salem and Vinton, and four with education backgrounds to train food service workers in food safety and hygiene.
Tabb said he doesn't know when the search will resume. In the meantime, the department's four environmental health specialists will continue conducting the inspections.
Military mutt
Marshall, the canine cadet at Virginia Military Institute, has been drummed out of the corps.
It seems that Marshall, a Dalmatian puppy who was designated the official corps dog this school year, had developed too much of a taste for military life.
After he bit two cadets, school officials decided it was time for him to go.
Mike Strickler, the school's public relations officer, reports that Marshall now is residing in a new home arranged for him by a track coach.
No butts
Some students at Roanoke County's Northside Middle School who have been caught smoking or admit they smoke will be enrolled in a pilot anti-smoking program.
A similar program has been tried in Richmond with a 50 percent success rate, said Mike Dixon of the American Lung Association of Virginia. Half the students either stopped smoking or reduced the number of cigarettes they smoked, he said.
The Lung Association will operate the program at Northside.
It will include six 50-minute sessions. The students will be helped to understand the reasons they smoke and develop proper techniques to stop, Dixon said.
He said the students also will be taught the health and social consequences of smoking - and that smoking now is banned in many workplaces.
A bachelor again
If you've spied Roanoke Mayor David Bowers around town with a different woman on his arm, it may be because he is "on the market." And we don't mean the City Market.
The recently divorced mayor has been seen at monthly cocktail parties put on by a group of single professionals.
And last month he turned up at - get this - the oh-so-lascivious Hookers' Ball, Roanoke's yearly homage to the pimps-and-prostitutes movie "Superfly." It was held at the Star City Ballroom.
The mayor also was voted "Sexiest Man in Roanoke" in a recent telephone poll of Roanoker magazine readers, dethroning WDBJ-TV Channel 7's weather dude Robin Reed.
Bowers and his second wife, Alison Weaver, separated March 6, 1994, on the eve of their second wedding anniversary. They recently were granted a divorce.
Under terms of the settlement, he gets their house on Camilla Avenue Southeast and she gets $25,000 in cash.
by CNB