JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

State regulatory officials seized control of Shenandoah Life on Thursday to help protect policyholders and creditors.

The late Frank Clement, once president of Shenandoah Life Insurance Co., helped develop Center in the Square in downtown Roanoke and served many other community organizations. He also played a key role as a member of a biracial committee designed to help the Roanoke Valley transition into desegregation.

Jim Sears, president and general manager for Center in the Square, said Clement's gifts as a fundraiser helped make the building and organization a reality.

He said subsequent presidents of Shenandoah Life, founded in Roanoke in 1914, have also been supportive of Center.

Sears was interviewed Thursday, the same day state regulatory officials seized control of the financially troubled Shenandoah Life to protect its policyholders and creditors.

Community fallout?

First and foremost, Shenandoah Life's financial woes could create pain for its employees and their families, Sears said. Late last year, the company employed about 280 people.

In addition, if the Roanoke born-and-bred company does not survive or merges with a larger company less committed to the Roanoke Valley, either outcome could adversely affect regional arts organizations and other nonprofits already struggling for funding, said Sears and others.

Retired banker Warner Dalhouse, a longtime contributor to and active board member for regional nonprofit organizations, said that the potential loss of Shenandoah Life would be another blow for Roanoke Valley cultural institutions.

"It's hard to get contributions when the decision-makers don't go to sleep in the same ZIP code as the people who operate nonprofits in that community," he said.

Dalhouse served as chairman of the board for Shenandoah Life for about 10 years, he recalled. He said he was on the search team that hired Robert Clark, chief executive officer, whom Dalhouse said has "done a wonderful job" helping Shenandoah Life boost sales of life insurance policies.

In 1993, when the company named Clark its new president, Clark told The Roanoke Times & World-News that he and his wife planned to continue their interest in civic work.

"One of the things I'd like to do is to find things that may be valuable to the community," he said then.

Dalhouse said the insurer's corporate culture encouraged employees to be active in the community.

It's a tradition that continues to this day: The company's vice president of human resources, Todd Putney, serves on Roanoke's school board

"You could always depend on Shenandoah Life people," Dalhouse said.

Good corporate citizen

Through the years, via mergers, relocations and acquisitions, Roanoke has lost the headquarters of many companies, including Norfolk Southern, Roanoke Electric Steel and Dominion Bank.

Bill Hopkins, a former state senator who is now 86, was a charter member of Center in the Square's board of directors and is the man for whom the Science Museum's Hopkins Planetarium is named.

"The bottom line is that Shenandoah Life has been a good corporate citizen in Roanoke for a long time," Hopkins said Thursday.

Sears agreed.

"Every president of Shenandoah Life has been supportive, both philosophically and philanthropically, of Center's role in the community," Sears said.

Shenandoah Life sold its first insurance policy in 1916, about two years after its 1914 founding.

Now, 95 years later, the insurer, like so many other firms nationwide, faces an uncertain future because of staggering investment losses tied to the subprime mortgage fiasco.

As deputy receiver appointed by the State Corporation Commission, Alfred Gross, state commissioner of insurance, will determine whether Shenandoah Life can be "rehabilitated" or should be liquidated. Gross said Friday that he hopes the company will resolve its financial problems and stay in business, but also said it is too early to speculate.

Clement and Hubard

Clement, a Roanoke native, retired as president of Shenandoah Life in 1972. An article nine years ago in this newspaper by Ben Beagle described Clement as "a soft-spoken man who didn't want headlines," and recalled his work "leading a noiseless committee to work for the orderly desegregation of the city."

The committee had six white members and six black members "and when its work under Clement was done, the city had integrated its restaurants, theaters and major corporations," Beagle wrote.

Years later, in 1983, Clement resigned from Roanoke's exclusive Shenandoah Club when it refused membership, at the time, to Jews who had been nominated to join.

When Clement died in March 2001, Hopkins said that the former Shenandoah Life president "was certainly one of Roanoke's most outstanding benefactors in the last half of the 20th century."

The late William Hubard, another longtime Shenandoah Life executive, also became a remarkably active civic leader, serving on city council and a long list of community boards. His obituary in May 2001 described involvement in so many community and charitable organizations that it is hard to imagine he found time for anything else.

When he left Shenandoah Life in 1985, Hubard became president of Center in the Square.

Both Dalhouse and Sears said Clark also has been active in the community and supportive of Center.

"Shenandoah Life has always been a dependable contributor," Dalhouse said.

Staff writer Jeff Sturgeon and news researcher Belinda Harris contributed to this report.