Gov. Glenn Youngkin has called for Roanoke and Norfolk to end sister city partnerships with Russian cities as part of his call for “decisive action” in support of Ukraine.
Dr. Robert Roth might not have become an official Roanoker until he was well into his 40s, but one of the marks he helped make on the city still thrives today, more than a half-century later.
Roth, a former Methodist missionary and plastic surgeon, co-founded Roanoke Valley Sister Cities Inc. in 1964 and served as the organizationâs president from 1991 to 2010. He died Friday in Williamsburg at age 91.
A native of Queens, New York, Roth in 1961 traveled to Wonju, South Korea, to work as a missionary doctor. While there, a friendship with another surgeon, Dr. Young U. Kim, revealed an unlikely Roanoke connection between them: Kim had practiced medicine in the city, at the old Jefferson Memorial Hospital, and Rothâs wife, Paulene, had taught at Hollins College, although Roth himself had not been to this area at the time.