Mayor David Bowers called for a Roanoke-based law school during the annual State of the City speech Thursday morning.

Bowers also praised a forthcoming medical school and defended the city council's plans to build a downtown amphitheater during his speech. The mayor's State of the City remarks have become a tradition in Roanoke, and Bowers, serving his third term, has become known for using it to push forward a major idea or two.

In front of a Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce-sponsored breakfast crowd of about 175, Bowers said that 10 years ago the thought of a medical school in Roanoke provoked laughter: "It was almost ridiculous to think about."

Now, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine has gotten preliminary accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and is set to open in August 2010.

Bowers said that school "is our greatest economic development project in Roanoke since the railroad came to town," and he thinks a law school would be just as viable.

"Lynchburg has a law school. Greensboro has a law school. Grundy has a law school, and Roanoke should have a law school, too," Bowers said.

"We can do this in Roanoke," he said. "We can and should have a law school here. I think it's important for us to stimulate the thought that a law school should be here in Roanoke near our city courthouse and our federal courthouse."

After the speech, he said there's already an ad-hoc committee at work on the project. He said he thought a law school could be opened for a fraction of the $60 million investment put into the medical school, and he added that he thought it could be done with no city money whatsoever.

Others seemed more skeptical. City Manager Darlene Burcham, who is scheduled to leave her job early next year, said she's done no work on Bowers' law school idea and isn't sure what might be involved in trying to make it work. Vice Mayor Sherman Lea said the idea isn't one of his priorities right now, as there are "too many other major issues."

"It shouldn't be on our radar screen right now," Lea said.

In addition to pitching his law school idea, Bowers spent time in his 21-minute speech praising others, including Burcham, Carilion Clinic CEO Ed Murphy, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine Dean Cynda Johnson, Citizen of the Year Estelle McCadden, Councilman David Trinkle, police Officer Bryan Lawrence and the late David Lisk, a former vice-mayor.

Bowers praised Lisk for doing "the noble and right thing" for stepping aside after Mayor Roy Webber died in 1975 and placing his support behind Noel Taylor, who became Roanoke's first black mayor and eventually -- after serving 17 years -- its longest-serving mayor as well.

Bowers also praised Trinkle as a major behind-the-scenes driver in adding the City Market Building renovation and Elmwood Park amphitheater to the city's five-year capital spending plan. Bowers said that those projects, combined with the Jefferson Center, Roanoke Civic Center and Valley View Mall, will make Roanoke a "tourism magnet that should have regional appeal throughout the mid-Atlantic states."

Lawrence, who last year was partially paralyzed after he intervened in an assault case while off duty, drew the only standing ovation of the speech. Lawrence returned to work for the department this week, Bowers said.

During the speech last year, Bowers, who was re-elected after an eight-year absence from the council, proposed no major projects or policy initiatives.

He praised Roanoke's council, administrators and school officials. Most of that speech focused on the city's "Clean and Green" campaign. Bowers touted the city's strides while calling for residents and businesses to play a role in making the city more environmentally friendly.

During the speeches during his first two mayoral terms from 1992-2000, Bowers pitched such ideas as an IMAX theater for downtown; a railside linear walkway; expanding the size of Carvins Cove (which was under drought conditions at the time); and his own "listening to Roanoke" meetings to try to foster open-ended community debate about issues.