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

DATE: SUNDAY, November 5, 1995                   TAG: 9511030114
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: G-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE RESCUERS WERE THE REAL HEROES

MIKE LESTER was at a Waffle House in Roanoke a few years ago when three high school girls from Martinsville came up to him. They just knew he was somebody famous. He was either race car driver Dale Earnhart - or he was "the guy who got trapped in the basement at Hollins."

During the Flood of '85, Mike Lester spent 271/2 hours sealed in a flooded basement at Hollins College. Part of that time, the water was so high in the 18-foot-tall room that he had just 6 inches of air to breath.

For a long time, no one knew where the telephone systems technician was. His wife was told he was dead. Then rescuers found him, and divers went in and got him out.

His rescue became one of the good-news stories that stood out among all the tales of death caused by the flood. His face was on the television news again and again.

Hardly a month goes by for Mike and his wife, Mary Lester, without someone bringing up the flood - and Mike's death-defying day.

"It's been a long time," Mary Lester says. "But in many people's memories, it seems like it happened just yesterday."

Mike Lester is a soft-spoken man of 47. He doesn't like the limelight, but he understands people's interest.

"The flood touched just about everybody in the valley," he says. "There were so many people who didn't make it."

The only thing that really bothers him is folks telling him he's a hero. All he did that day was what anybody else would do - try to find a way to stay alive.

He clung to pipes and a floating desk.

For him, the heroes were the rescuers who saved him and many other people that day. He was especially thankful for the three diving-team members from the Roanoke County Sheriff's Department who pulled him out, along with the rescue-squad members, co-workers and others who helped.

In the years since, the big changes in Lester's life have been the deaths of his father and Mary's mother, and the high school graduation of their son, Chris, who is now a junior at Emory & Henry College.

Mike Lester looks much the same as he did back then. (Mary teases that his mustache has a bit more white in it.) He's still a big Virginia Tech fan, and wouldn't miss taking his mother to football games at Lane Stadium.

He and Mary live in the same house in the Garden City area. Both still work for the phone company, although its name has changed from C&P to Bell Atlantic Virginia.

Mike Lester calls himself a born Roanoker. This is where he will live and die. Surviving the flood gave him a chance to see the valley grow over the past decade.

"I'm thankful for every second that I live," he says. But, "I tried not to let it change my life."

by CNB