ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 16, 1997 TAG: 9702170002
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: new river journal
SOURCE: ELIZABETH OBENSHAIN
It must have been awkward taking vacations when the world was flat. You're out there enjoying the new sites and WHUMP! you fall off the edge of the Earth.
Tourists may still feel that way in Virginia.
You've toured the historic high spots in Richmond, edged up to The Homestead for a round of golf, and then OOOPS you're at the end of the Earth. Western Virginia? It doesn't even exist.
That's what you might think from some tourism publications, including the latest edition of Travel & Leisure, a glossy travel magazine for the well-heeled.
It's the sort of publication that makes tourism officials drool.
Its lead article this month - "the best of virginia" - was even written by a Virginian - but obviously one who has never set foot in The Hotel Roanoke or canoed down the New River.
He must be one of those effete Eastern Virginians who hasn't ventured west of Charlottesville. His prose is laden with references to "ancestral" portraits and "Cavaliers."
He gives our part of the state a cold shoulder.
But his article illustrates a fact of life for the New River Valley and Western Virginia: It's a tough job to promote tourism - or economic development - in this part of the state.
It requires creativity and an opportunistic streak.
We have no reconstructed Colonial villages, no Homesteads, no Nordstroms.
So local economic development officials, like Pulaski's Barry Matherly, go courting magazines with a regional rather than a national scope for a feature spread on their towns. Business owners look for exposure in specialty guidebooks profiling luxury bed and breakfasts or outdoor adventure.
The New River Valley is becoming increasingly aware that it has unique attractions - in part because we have been largely undiscovered and unexploited so far.
The very handicaps we contend with are also our saving grace.
Years ago, when I lived in Lexington, I realized the secret to that small city's success was its former poverty - it kept business owners from tearing down the old and financing nice modern buildings.
Our region's slow growth has its disadvantages, but it also is one reason we still have farmlands, unobstructed mountain views and historic downtowns.
Walk through downtown Pulaski - not a household name in tourism circles - and you can't help but notice entire streets of period storefronts. Walk over the bridge spanning Peak Creek and notice the 100-year-old stone retaining walls, the weathered brick buildings lining the water's edge, the potential of this peaceful creek meandering through downtown.
The valley's magnificent river, its lakes and bike trails are not yet jammed with people or crowded by condos and commercial strips.
We still have time to get our bearings, to debate among ourselves what we value and want to preserve in this valley. We have time to gain some wisdom that has escaped busier parts of the state.
Many of the folks I work with, who migrated here from more crowded cultures, are betting that the New River Valley will soon be discovered for its breathtaking spaces, its easy pace of living, its small, friendly communities. But even the man in charge of corporate courtship for the valley, Stuart Gilbert, has warned that we need to plan for that growth or we will find our countryside disappearing into the franchised blandness that has smothered so many other communities.
Perhaps we shouldn't broadcast so blatantly the news about the New River Trail, Claytor Lake and Mountain Lake, the variety of bed and breakfasts, the friendly coffee shop and antique stores in Pulaski, the Appalachian Trail and the trout streams.
Or maybe we should be nice and give the folks from Travel & Leisure one more chance. If they want to visit, we could even treat them like honored guests, maybe let them throw out the first pitch at a Pulaski Rangers game or pose with the winner at the New River Valley Speedway.
If we can just persuade them that they won't fall off the edge of the world
Elizabeth Obenshain is editor of the New River Current.
LENGTH: Medium: 78 linesby CNB