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BLACKSBURG - Joyce Bowling, bundled against the chilly wind and handing out fliers in a Kroger parking lot, could be the face of this year's unusually spirited town council race in Blacksburg.

Or it could be Jeanne Stosser, lining up the companies that usually create ads for her various business interests to donate their expertise to make campaign brochures. Or it could be any of the many other volunteers who have thrown their efforts into an election they see as critical to the town's future.

"People are realizing the town is changing real fast," Ann Goette said Tuesday.

A 36-year town resident, Goette this year helped form Citizens First, which opposes a plan to build a conventional, gravity-fed sewer through the Toms Creek Basin. The sewer has been the chief issue of the election, but Citizens First also wants a council that opposes urban sprawl and adheres to the town charter. The current council bypassed the charter's requirement that five of seven members support measures to incur debt and instead issued bonds for the sewer under a section of state code that requires only a simple majority.

Above all, Citizens First wants a council that is more responsive to residents.

"A lot of people don't care about the sewer per se, but they do care about being heard," Goette said.

Citizens First is backing incumbent Ron Rordam and challengers Paul Lancaster and Don Langrehr. Three seats are open in the May 4 contest. All are at-large, which means the three highest vote-getters will join council on July 1.

Stosser has thrown herself into energizing the campaign behind three pro-sewer candidates: Councilman J.B. Jones and write-in candidates Toby Rock and Frances Parsons. Parsons has served on the council for 32 years but planned to step down this year. She decided to run when she saw how the election could shift council's 4-3 support for the sewer, but the deadline to file for the ballot had already passed.

Several prominent businesspeople, including Bill Aden of Draper-Aden Associates and Georgia Anne Snyder-Falkinham of Snyder and Associates, last week pledged to support Parsons' campaign.

"I am one of the persons who as a constituent and a local developer urged Frances Parsons to run," said Stosser, who lives in Montgomery County and thus won't be voting in the election. "I am much more comfortable with someone in office who has an understanding of the past and a clear understanding of the future than I am on taking my chances with a new member."

So Stosser persuaded otherbusinesses to donate printing and creative services to make brochures for Parsons that instruct voters how to cast a write-in vote. And she let Rock put up his yard signs - they urge support for both Rock and Jones - on her company's properties.

Stosser said the value of those donations has yet to be calculated but will be reported in the candidates' campaign finance statements, due June 15.

Citizens First has raised $3,341 so far, said Kay Kay Goette, Ann's sister and the group's treasurer. Citizens First gathered a list of about 1,400 voters who support its issues and will be calling them to remind them to vote, she said.

The group kicked off its campaign with a fund-raiser at which environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke. It has held house parties for voters to meet candidates and sent volunteers out to distribute fliers.

One of those volunteers is Bowling, who on Tuesday afternoon was settling in for 2 1/2 hours or so of handing out Citizens First fliers at the Kroger on University City Boulevard. A retired property manager and Blacksburg resident since 1948, Bowling, 64, had also spent much of the morning in front of the store.

Asked why she was doing it, Bowling thought for a moment, then echoed Goette's words. "You kind of get the feeling you're not being heard, and it's frustrating," she said.