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

DATE: SUNDAY, November 26, 1995                   TAG: 9511270017
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: VIRGIL A. COOK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VOLUNTEER'S FAMILIAR VOICE IS SILENCED

This morning, I was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Joyce Hewitt. The blind and visually impaired community in particular has lost a longtime, invaluable and dedicated friend.

I first learned Joyce Hewitt's name when she began reading area newspapers for the local reading service for the print impaired. The service was offered by public radio WVWR before the station became WVTF.

When I joined the board of directors for Voice of the Blue Ridge, a support group for the Virginia Tech Radio Reading Service, I began to learn of the countless hours Joyce devoted to the blind community. Behind that voice so familiar to Radio Reading Service listeners was a sensitive, dedicated woman.

I had first heard her voice as a freshman at Roanoke College in 1955 when the Junior League of Roanoke began a textbook reading service for me and other blind students. It was not until the 1980s that I met and learned to love the woman whose voice I had first heard nearly 30 years before.

At board meetings, her perception and objectivity regularly saved us from making unwise decisions that we might later have strongly regretted. She also spent countless hours unpacking, testing, repacking and addressing the special radios required for receiving the Reading Service broadcasts.

I soon learned that her work with Voice of the Blue Ridge and the Virginia Tech Radio Reading Service was only part of her volunteer work in the Roanoke Valley and Western Virginia.

Only WVTF staff could begin to catalog the hours of service that Joyce gave to the station. My loss of a good friend is also a grievous loss to WVTF, Voice of the Blue Ridge, the Virginia Tech Radio Reading Service and to the community of volunteers in this area.

Joyce Hewitt's tireless service to her community is typical of thousands of volunteers for thousands of organizations throughout the United States. She is a representative of all of those volunteers who work so quietly - but ever so diligently - everywhere.

For me, this painful loss recalls the words that Shakespeare gave to Macbeth: ``She should have died hereafter.''

Virgil A. Cook, who holds a master's degree and doctorate from Vanderbilt University, lives in Blacksburg and has taught English at Virginia Tech since 1963.

by CNB