Photo by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Students at the Roanoke Higher Education Center take notes during their class called "The Role of the Reading Specialist." Members of this Virginia Tech class already are teachers and are working toward becoming reading specialists.

Photo by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Retired Salem schools Superintendent Wayne Tripp teaches a doctoral educational leadership class offered by Virginia Tech at the Roanoke Higher Education Center. Students in Tripp's class are preparing their dissertations.

Photo by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Lisa Anderson talks with classmates during a session of "School Leadership in Curriculum and Instruction," offered by Virginia Tech at the Roanoke Higher Education Center.

Photo by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Tom McKeon, 65, has been the center's executive director since August 1999. He estimates that about 70 percent of students at the center are nontraditional, adult learners.

Photo by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

The Roanoke Higher Education Center near downtown Roanoke is celebrating its 10th anniversary on Sept. 10.

Pluck, luck, political sway and a private jet.

Add Norfolk Southern's 1997 donation of its stout, eight-story General Office Building-North, once headquarters for Norfolk and Western Railway.

And, of course, consider the heart of the matter.

Which was believers' vision of a higher education center where adult learners, traditional college students and people seeking work force training could pursue, in one centralized spot, degrees or certifications offered by partner colleges, universities and others.

Beginning this month and continuing through November, the Roanoke Higher Education Center on North Jefferson Street in downtown Roanoke will celebrate its 10th anniversary. It opened for classes Aug. 15, 2000. Since then, the center's collection of educational partners has served thousands of people. Nearly 6,000 people have completed college degrees or GEDs, or have been certified, trained or licensed for a variety of occupations.

Yet many people in Roanoke and in neighboring cities and counties know little about the higher education center and its role.

"One of the things we've never been able to do to the extent that we would like is more outreach -- getting the word out better, marketing, communications," said Tom McKeon, 65, the center's executive director since Aug. 1, 1999 -- the same month renovations began.

Educational institutions housed within handle their own marketing, he said. But the center, which is owned by the Roanoke Higher Education Authority, a political subdivision of the state, could do more to trumpet details about what it does and offers.

The awareness gap surprises McKeon.

"It's amazing to me because we've had our share of news coverage over the years," he said.

On the other hand, thousands of people have walked the halls of the eight-story, 150,000-square-foot building.

But enrollment numbers, comparing fall 2000 to fall 2009, are just about flat. Fall 2000 enrollment was more than 2,500. Fall 2009 was 2,645. Two original colleges -- Hampton University and Ferrum College -- have left. The University of North Carolina came and went. James Madison University joined. McKeon said the troubled economy has limited the ability of some to pay tuition. He said the center has been in discussion with three potential educational partners who might join the center.

Adult learners

McKeon estimates that about 70 percent of students who take classes at the center are nontraditional, adult learners. By one definition, an adult learner is someone engaged in an adult role, such as a worker, spouse, parent or soldier, and someone who accepts responsibility for his or her own life.

Will Farmer of Roanoke County jokes that he could be a poster boy. He works full time for Cox Communications.

Last year, Farmer, now 30, enrolled in a Professional Masters of Business Administration program taught by Virginia Tech professors, with classes at the center one month and in Richmond the next. Classes meet on Friday and Saturday.

"I can still work full time and be in school and get the same accredited education I'd receive at Virginia Tech's main campus [in Blacksburg]," Farmer said. "The professors are experts in their fields."

He said the Roanoke center "basically opened the door to allow me to do something I've been wanting to do for several years."

Farmer's wife, Laura, also takes classes through Virginia Tech at the higher education center as she works toward a doctoral degree in counselor education.

Roanoke County resident Lynn Kirby, 51, worked 26 years for Lanford Brothers Co., a family construction business, and then retired.

"I had always wanted to be a teacher, so I began to look into my options," Kirby said. "I [had] graduated from Roanoke College with a bachelor of business administration and I was looking for the quickest degree in Roanoke."

Kirby knew about the higher education center, in part because her father, Stan Lanford, had served on its original board of trustees.

In 2007, she began course work through Mary Baldwin College and graduated in May 2009 with a Master of Arts in teaching. She taught last year at Glade Hill Elementary School in Franklin County.

Kirby completed most of her study before many schools embraced distance learning for some of their courses. She is glad about that timing.

"I did enjoy being in a class," she said. "There was a flow of ideas and practical advice that you got from teachers and other students in the class that you didn't necessarily get working online."

Evington resident Sherri Davidson, 38, enrolled in Mary Baldwin College classes when she was 32. A full-time mother, she expects to graduate at 39.

So far, she said, about half of her classes have featured distance learning. High-tech communication modes can allow interaction among students and teachers even if the teacher is in Blacksburg and the student in Roanoke -- either at the center or at home.

"At the beginning, I was unsure about distance learning," Davidson said.

Her first online class, a child psychology class, changed her mind. Communication has not been a problem, Davidson said.

Susan Short is director of Virginia Tech's Roanoke Center, which occupies the building's entire seventh floor. She said the center provides "easy access for our students to come and go" and "a smorgasbord of opportunities."

"A student can walk in and complete a GED and go all the way to a doctoral degree," Short said.

And, like McKeon, she said many in the region have little knowledge of the center.

"Sometimes it is an unrecognized gem that the Roanoke region has in its midst," she said.

The back story

Warner Dalhouse blames two men.

"Rob Glenn and Brian Wishneff accosted me and asked me to take on the job of chairing the thing [Destination Education]," Dalhouse recalled playfully last week.

At the time, Wishneff, a former economic development director for the city, had left to start his own consulting business.

Dalhouse, a prominent Roanoke businessman, agreed to help lead the center's fledgling campaign -- with one condition.

"I told them, 'I can't do it by myself but I will co-chair if I can get Heywood [Fralin] to come on.' "

Fralin, another influential Roanoke businessman, agreed. State Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, joined the effort. Roanoke lawyer John Rocovich flew Dalhouse, Fralin, Edwards and Wishneff around Virginia to lobby state officials and politicians to support and help fund the center.

Dalhouse said that the late Bob Spilman, then head of Bassett Furniture Industries, held great sway with the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.That's their name, per their website

"He did not take 'no' for an answer," he said.

Turbulence sometimes buffeted the effort, including a state pitch to name the building the Roanoke Workforce Training Center.

Regional business leaders and officials emphasized that the Roanoke metropolitan area was the state's largest jurisdiction that did not host a public four-year college or university. And Wishneff emphasized that when he worked for the city, he fielded complaints from some of the region's largest employers that their employees had to travel to Blacksburg, Charlottesville or elsewhere to receive additional education.

Wishneff said recently that there was a real risk those businesses could have decided to move away.

Creating nearby opportunities for higher education and training "at the time was probably, after airport service, the biggest issue to maintain and attract companies."

Wishneff recalled that local support for a higher education center soared in 1997 after Michael Mullen, an interim director of the council of higher education, seemed to imply that folks around Roanoke and the vicinity might lack the brains necessary to pursue college degrees.

"Roanoke is not Northern Virginia," Mullen said during a council meeting.

Wishneff, who was a paid consultant for the project, called Mullen's gaffe the "You're not smart enough incident." The comments stirred people up, he said.

"That was under the category of 'it's better to be lucky than good,' " he said. "It became kind of hard for anybody in Richmond to stand against us at that point."

Ultimately, the state contributed $9 million, Roanoke pitched in $2.5 million, and historic tax credits covered $7.5 million for the $19 million renovation project and educational retrofit of a building completed in 1931.

What's next?

The higher education center laid off staff this year for the first time in its 10-year history. Three administrative staff members lost their jobs, victims of circumstances McKeon attributed to state funding cuts, rocky economic conditions and other revenue drops.

The state's annual appropriation peaked in 2007 at $1.28 million. The fiscal 2011 appropriation is $1.12 million. The center is governed by a 21-member board of trustees that includes representatives from 15 participating institutions, three General Assembly members and three trustees appointed by the governor. Gubernatorial appointees include Debbie Meade, president and publisher of The Roanoke Times.

In December 2008, the center commissioned an economic impact study that McKeon said should help state legislators recognize the bargain that exists at the higher education facility. The center has a draft copy but has released no numbers.

Dalhouse said he believes the center continues to meet its mission of offering centralized higher education and work force training in Roanoke.

"I think it's been a resounding success," he said.

News researcher Belinda Harris contributed to this report.

Online: www.education.edu