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Larry Hoover's Day

This year in Harrisonburg, April 23 will have a new name: Larry Hoover Day. WMRA’s Christopher Clymer Kurtz reports.

Harrisonburg mayor Chris Jones is issuing a proclamation honoring local attorney Larry Hoover with a day named in his honor.

Hoover was one of the founders of the Community Mediation Center (now the Fairfield Center) and a pioneer of the Alternative Dispute Resolution movement in Virginia.

LARRY HOOVER: I can't believe it. I'm flattered. I think it's time for there to be a recognition of the importance of dispute resolution in the community.

Attorney Kathryn Fairfield was another of the mediation center cofounders.

KATHRYN FAIRFIELD: He is really one of the best human beings that I have known. His life exemplifies the principles of this very human process of working together.

Fairfield says that Hoover’s motivation was a matter of faith but also practical.

FAIRFIELD: Seeing people struggling through the legal system, he felt that this would be an alternative that would be a viable one on many fronts: on emotional fronts, on financial fronts, on the quality of the outcome, so many fronts.

HOOVER: That’s what we ought to be doing is talking it out. But of course that's easier said than done and it doesn't happen automatically.

Hoover will be commemorated with the first Lawrence H. Hoover Jr. Award for Excellence in Peaceable Service to the Community at the 33rd anniversary dinner of the Fairfield Center on his day, April 23, 2016.

Christopher Clymer Kurtz was a freelance journalist for WMRA from 2015 - 2019.