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

DATE: SATURDAY, October 7, 1995                   TAG: 9510090034
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROCKET MAY GET A BIG LIFT

Ten years ago, flood waters and high winds couldn't budge the old Jupiter rocket in Wasena Park. But that won't stop the Virginia Museum of Transportation from trying to uproot the 22,000-pound rocket from its home of 30 years.

The rocket is sketched into design plans for a pedestrian park area in front of the museum.

It's not the first time the museum has talked of a reunion since the flood of 1985 forced the museum from its Wasena Park home. In 1989, the museum's then executive director talked of moving the orphaned rocket to the museum's downtown locale. But the plans and the rocket never got off the ground.

Reuniting the museum and rocket was just one of two plans announced by museum officials at a news conference Friday. The other is a $1 million fund-raising drive.

The fund-raising drive, which started Friday, will allow the museum to become a first-class facility, museum President Weldon Lawrence said. The museum now barely fills half of the old Norfolk & Western freight station on Norfolk Avenue.

Since the flood, Lawrence said, the museum has "just survived" until the past year. "For 10 years, we didn't have much to operate with."

A Roanoke bond referendum and a federal grant may change that.

In 1994, Roanoke voters agreed to pledge $813,000 to improve the downtown attraction. But there's a catch: Those are matching funds. Museum Executive Director Kay Houck said she hopes the museum will have raised the matching dollars by December 1996. It already has raised $100,000.

The money will allow the museum to expand inside and out, Lawrence said. The outdoor renovations would include six pavilions to cover exhibits that now bear scars of life outside.

One pavilion already has gone up. It covers the museum's latest addition to its collection of planes, trains and automobiles: the Class J No.611 steam engine. It's the sole survivor of 14 J class steam engines. Friday marked a homecoming for the engine, which was designed and built in Roanoke.

The museum also received about $225,000 in a federal grant to redo the museum's entrance.

by CNB