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Come along for a journey of discovery with Tom Wilmer in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountain region. Our adventure starts in Blacksburg Virginia at Virginia Tech www.vt.edu. It’s fall and the day of our arrival coincided with the homecoming football game against Duke.
To say that the Virginia Tech football fans, are passionately fanatical is an understatement. Imagine more than 66,000 boosters, most all dressed in Maroon in homage to the team’s color. And I quickly learned that the fans and students alike see nothing funny about their mascot’s name—It’s a turkey. And it’s called the Hokie Bird to be specific, and that’s how most everyone proudly introduces themselves, “I’m a Hokie”. And to say that Hokie pride permeates life on campus and in town is a vast understatement. We’ll visit with Timothy Sands, Head Hokie, and proud President of Virginia Tech in the Presidential box for a birds-eye view of the game as he talks about his pride and passion for everything Hokie.
Afterwards we’ll stop in at the nearby Virginia Tech Center for the Arts where Susan Bland, Communications Manager shares her passion for the new performing arts center that’s attracting world-class performers, and crowds from across the state in addition to a passionate following by students and faculty.
And then it’s off to nearby Roanoke, Virginia, just forty miles away, for a visit with Della Watkins, Director of the Taubman Museum of Art located in the heart of downtown Roanoke. The Taubman is presently featuring the works of John James Audubon (Oct 17th 2015- February 14, 2016) in addition to an assortment of other world-class works of art.
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