Horace Hood, III
Horace Hood, III, is remembered by the whole of Roanoke Valley by his connection to the Roanoke Times and World News. He came by this connection in a natural way--his father was a newspaper editor who moved his family from Montgomery, Alabama to Virginia in time for Horace, III to get all his formal education in Salem, graduating from Salem High School in 1933 and from Roanoke College in 1937.
With grandfather Horace Hood being publisher of the Montgomery Journal in Alabama and father Horace, Jr. telegraph editor of the Roanoke World News, it was in the cards that Horace, III would launch his own newspaper career on the high school paper and follow it up with four years on the Roanoke College paper Brackety-Ack, of which he became editor-in-chief.
Upon graduation from college, he worked for The Roanoke Times, progressively as reporter, state news editor, city editor, assistant managing editor of The Times; associate editor of The Roanoke Times & World News; vice president of the Times-World Corporation; and publisher of a Times-World property, the Galax Gazette.
Horace also claims a distinguished military career; he was made a U. S. Navy Captain in 1963. During the last of four years on active duty in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and the Pacific in World War II, he commanded the USS LST 304. He was recalled to active duty in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. When he retired in 1973 as commanding officer of all naval Reserve units in Roanoke and Lynchburg, he was awarded the Navy’s Commendation medal.
His community service is likewise just as committed. He has served presidencies of Roanoke Kiwanis Club, Roanoke Businessmen’s Club, and Roanoke Valley Safety Council. He has been recognized as a Roanoke Valley Father of the Year and has received the Roanoke College Meritorious Achievement Award, the Boy Scouts of America Silver Beaver and the Archaeological Society of Virginia Archaeologist of the Year Award.
For 26 years, Horace was clerk of the Session at Raleigh Court Presbyterian Church, where he also teaches Sunday School. He is a past presbytery moderator and past board member of the Presbyterian Home in Lynchburg.
At Roanoke College he played football and was president of the Blue Key Honor society and Demosthenean Literary Society.
In recognition of his outstanding career achievements, in 1996 Horace Hood, III was among the charter members inducted into the Salem Alumni Hall of Fame established by the Salem Educational Foundation and Alumni Association.
