Dean Crane (TOB Director of Parks & Recreation) and Kelly Mattingly (TOB Director of Public Works) conceived of this memorial and chose a location, at Blacksburg’s Heritage Park, for a memorial bench with a plaque honoring Susan. The bench is near the picnic pavilion, close to the upper parking lot off of Glade Road in Blacksburg. The bench was selected and prepared at virtually no cost to the Town, because it was removed from its location on College Avenue during reconstruction in 2012-13. (We believe that Susan would be so pleased that her memorial bench was a recycled one!) Twelve trees were planted near the bench to form the beginning of a new grove of trees, whose numbers we hope to grow. All of these trees were from the Town’s tree nursery. We understand that visitors to Susan’s bench are already referring to the beautiful view, overlooking Tom’s Creek Valley, as “SUSAN’S VIEW”.
