Va Museum of Transportation

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

At 9:54 PM -0400 7/19/06, Ron wrote:

>The roof at the Virginia Museum of Transportation was damaged by a severe thunderstorm in Roanoke this evening.


Even worse is the long-term damage caused by current director Bob Dills and his misappropriation of museum funds, along with the dilettantes on the board who let this happen.  Even before it reported on the roof damage, WDBJ was investigating the finances of the museum.  Keith Humphry gave the results of the month-long investigation on the news on July 20 (see http://wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S=5179037 and http://www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S=2493113&nav=S6aK for the script of the 6:00 newscast).   One of the keys in the report was how a $5,000 donation from Wachovia bank for restoration of the "President One" Pullman car had been mis-spent.  Also reported were other problems with items purchased for the museum that didn't end up at the museum.

Just over a year ago, we had this same conversation on the Virginian list, about how museum donations dropped into a black hole, how volunteers have been mistreated and run off, and about how unresponsive the museum board has been to offers of assistance and requests for accountability for money given for specific projects.  Perhaps the WDBJ report, with follow-ups, will be a wake-up call that maybe will bring about changes for the good to the VMT.

-- 
Bruce in Blacksburg         === In the heart of N&W territory. ===

Bruce B. Harper                              (540)231-4360
University Relations/Web Communications  bharper at vt.edu
Virginia Tech        Blacksburg, Virginia  26060
See N&W WWW Page at http://filebox.vt.edu/users/bharper/nwrwy/