Roger Edward Hedgepeth, 89, of Blacksburg, died of natural causes Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019.
A public memorial will take place on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2019, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Lyric Theatre in downtown Blacksburg
Roger Hedgepeth was born Jan. 17, 1930, in Norfolk, the second son of Atna and Mattie Hedgepeth. Atna was employed by Ford Motor Company in Norfolk. His older brother, Ralph, served in the Air Force during World War II and later had a career in banking and finance. Roger attended Maury High School and Old Dominion University.
Roger transferred to Virginia Polytechnic Institute and completed his studies in Mechanical Engineering. After graduation, he worked briefly in Philadelphia as a design engineer before serving in the Army during the Korean Conflict. Following his service in the Army, he returned to VPI, obtained a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering and subsequently taught thermodynamics and related courses at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. As a college student, he played saxophone and clarinet in bands that toured in Virginia and West Virginia. In the Army, he played in orchestras for officers’ clubs and military marching bands.
He married the true love of his life, Jenny, in 1956, with whom he was delighted to spend the next 55 years discovering the joys of a shared life of broad interests together.
Roger also was a consulting engineer who designed hydraulic components for industrial and military clients during his career at Electro-Tech in Blacksburg. He retired from his professional career from Career Services at Virginia Tech.
Aside from his professional pursuits, Roger surrounded himself with music and the arts. His record collection earned him the nickname of “Mr. Vinyl” among his mechanical engineering friends. Especially during his earlier years at VPI, Jenny and he hosted gatherings of musicians, actors and artists from all over the world. His musical preferences were boundless: classical, country, jazz, rock and roll, experimental and avant-garde and other genres. He collected and preserved copies of prints of pastoral English countryside images and early twentieth century modern artists.
In 1980, after getting involved in his own neighborhood advocacy group as a spokesman, he decided to seek political office to be a fair and informed representative of citizen interests. He served for two years on the Blacksburg Town Council and the next twenty-four years as the town’s Mayor.
Although he considered himself to be akin to an ex-patriot American living in a peacetime, pre-atomic Paris, he was never more at home, and never ventured far from, Blacksburg. He truly loved everything about this town: its places, its history, its potential, and most of all, its citizens, both temporary and permanent.
As mayor, he synthesized his appreciation of the arts, the precision of an engineer’s thinking and his understanding of the indomitable human spirit to find commonality and purpose among all of his constituents. He savored the opportunity to exude charm, wit, empathy, knowledge and intelligence to craft paths to progress. Though always humble about his achievements, he may well have admitted to being proud of having had the chance to make a difference.
As a true friend of mammalian pets, especially dogs, Roger was a proud owner (with Jenny) of Barney, Komisch and Sheba, and in his childhood, Stumpy. But Roger also provided baloney and hot dogs for all the neighborhood dogs, and any stray, underfed dog; they were all deserving and worthy to him.
Roger is predeceased by his wife, Jenny, his parents Atna and Mattie, and his brother Ralph. He is survived by his daughter, Natalie, and her husband, David Dierks, and grandchildren Taylor and Austin of Bristol, Va.; his son Michael and his wife, Shelley Martin, and grandchildren Risher and Azat of Blacksburg..
To honor Roger’s memory, it would be in keeping with his wishes that donations are made to a favorite charity, that time is volunteered to a favorite activity in service to a community, that thanks and tributes are extended to military veterans, that attendance to concerts and artists’ shows is manifest and that stray dogs get hot dogs for treats.
