ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 18, 1997 TAG: 9704180082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY THE ROANOKE TIMES
That "city lady" you see on TV or talk to on the telephone is going to speak for Tallahassee.
Last fall, city public information officer Michelle Bono was approaching 1997 with some trepidation.
Her husband, Richard, had quit his supervisory job at Yokohama Tire Co. and soon would be attending a marine mechanics school in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Besides facing a substantial cut in family income, Bono would be alone most of the time, juggling her full-time job with raising their two children, ages 10 and 3, and running their Roanoke County home.
There would be child care to arrange, savings accounts to tap, plane tickets to order for the infrequent weekends her husband would be able to fly home.
And yard work, grocery shopping, housecleaning, help with homework - everything that goes with being a single parent, even temporarily.
1997 looked like it was going to be a tough year for the City Hall veteran.
Now and then, however, things seem to work out.
Bono, 36, has been hired for a similar position in Florida's capital, Tallahassee, beginning next month. She'll be a few hours' drive from her husband, running a five-person office in a larger city - and making a lot more than her $46,000 salary here.
The city of Roanoke, meanwhile, has begun advertising for a new spokesperson and expects to fill the position within 90 days.
Some officials wonder whether Bono can be replaced easily.
"She has been a complete team player, and our entire organization has come to rely on her for advice and counsel," City Manager Bob Herbert said.
A native of Kansas, Bono moved to Roanoke in 1985 and took the city public information job in 1987 after a two-year stint working for Hollins College. In 1989, she was lured to Thornton, Colo., for a similar post - a job she ended up hating. She returned to Roanoke in 1990.
During her tenure, the job's responsibilities have grown.
Besides writing news releases and answering questions from the public, she has helped develop programming on Cox Cable's government access channel (and starred in some of it); she has overseen the launch of the city's site on the World Wide Web; and she has started CityPage, a regular paid advertisement that appears in The Roanoke Times and the Roanoke Tribune.
"Michelle has built a complete communications package that has improved two-way communication between government and citizens, neighborhoods, City Council and our own employees," Herbert said.
One of her proudest accomplishments, Bono said, was writing the application that landed Roanoke its fifth All-America City award last year. Only one other city in the country has won the honor five times.
While city officials are looking for her replacement, Bono is wondering whether Florida's northern panhandle can match the Roanoke Valley's beauty and friendliness of its people.
"One of the first things that struck me when we moved here was how beautiful this place was. The mountains - we spent every weekend driving up and down the [Blue Ridge] parkway. The other thing was how warm and accepting the people were," she said. "Roanoke has been home for 10 years. This has been a wonderful place to live."
She's keeping her fingers crossed.
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Bonoby CNB