* * Lois Badey loves fundraising

Gosh, it feels good when a talented, passionate person comes here to the NRV and loves it. Lois Badey, Senior Director of Development for the new Virginia Tech Moss Arts Center and the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology, is another of our newcomers.

Badey, a certified fundraising executive, has a long background in philanthropy and benevolence. Her grandparents were missionaries, her father was a preacher and her mother was a professional singer. “That DNA has always been in me.

“All through my life,” she told me, “I have done volunteer work. I have always enjoyed raising money for small organizations.

“I realized that I could get paid for doing something that I really love to do. That is helping make a difference and facilitating change for people and really making people’s lives better. I have been in higher education for about 25 years.”

I asked her how she ended up at Virginia Tech. She told me that she was contacted by a professional job recruiter. Her first development job was at Randolph Macon College. After seven or eight years there, a job opened up at VCU and she stayed there for many years, but eventually needed a change. That’s when a recruiter called her to tell her about the job at Tech. That recruiter told her about an opportunity at a new center for the arts. It all sounded wonderful to her. But during the conversation, she couldn’t remember where the recruiter said the job was. She said, “So I asked her, ‘where is this exactly?’ The recruiter said, ‘it is at Virginia Tech.’ And I went, ‘in Blacksburg?’ And she said, ‘please don’t hang up.’

“I didn’t see that as a positive or a negative. I really didn’t know. I had never been to southwest Virginia. I knew nothing about Virginia Tech. This job for me was really a big leap, in many ways.”

The recruiter sent her a folder with an architectural rendering of the new Center for the Arts that was under construction at the time. She said, “I took a look at these materials and I immediately turned to my husband and said, Tom, ‘I know am going to get this job and I know I am going.’” Seeing my incredulity, she said, “Really.” She said this to me without a hint of arrogance, only confidence and belief in destiny.

“I came up for an interview. It was October 21, a beautiful fall day. Somebody really orchestrated that day properly.”

I said, “If you make your first trip to Blacksburg in October, you will find it hard to leave.

She said, “It IS hard to leave. I really understand the orange and maroon. It is real. It is on the leaves.”

Long story short, her interview went well and two months later she got the job. She soon formed a special relationship with Pat Buckley Moss who became the Center’s primary, named benefactor. “I so enjoy Pat’s family. They’re all wonderful. Nurturing. And they all love Virginia Tech. I look at her art and see so many different things. I see a beautiful linear quality, I see spiritual qualities, and I see whimsical qualities. A connection with nature.”

I recapped that Virginia Tech, once solely an agricultural and engineering college, had now made a bold statement about the arts. I said, “The Center has already given us a nudge in a new direction. Where do you see that going?”

“I see it going exponentially,” she beamed. “To infinity and beyond. It amazes me that many people still have not experienced a performance in the Moss Arts Center. There are people who understand the intrinsic value of the arts. It’s in their spirit. They may not play music or draw, but they love the arts. It’s innate, intuitive. Other people are afraid of getting connected, fearing they may learn something about themselves that makes them uncomfortable or changes their views or their life. There are people who don’t know they’d love the arts. Where we go in the future is making more people more comfortable. Imagine where we’ll be in 10 or 20 years!”

She said Southwest Virginians have always had art. “We just don’t call it art. The land here is a tradition. I knew nothing about this area when I came. I had a vague notion of Appalachia and what it was. It’s the people. It’s the beauty of the mountains. It’s the harshness of the winter and the magic of summer.

“The people here have no airs. Everybody is aware of their environment and the beauty of this place, and how it could be lost over one mistake.

“Drive down I-81 now in the springtime and see the red-buds highlighted against the lime-green shoots on the dogwood… you know you’re in Southwest Virginia. It is my favorite time of year. Spring is here. The mountains are forgiving in a way. I may never leave.”