Individual Details

Obituary of Frank Pierce Hancock

Frank P. Hancock Jr., a Roanoke newspaper reporter who for 38 years covered everything from the state legislature to Virginia medicine, has died at the age of 68.

Friends said Hancock had been hospitalized for a week before his death early today.

Hancock's career with the Roanoke newspapers began in 1946 with the Roanoke World-News - then the city's afternoon paper - as a photographer-reporter.

He stayed on when the morning and afternoon papers combined into the Roanoke Times & World-News in the late 1970s.

Hancock, one of the paper's senior writers, retired as medical writer in 1983.

After that, Hancock's byline continued to appear as a free-lance writer in the newspaper's Neighbors section.

During his career - interrupted briefly in 1964 by a move into public relations - Hancock had done almost everything for the newspapers.

He took pictures and wrote features. He covered city government, the General Assembly, politics, police, courts, the environment and medicine.

He also was once an assistant city editor on the World-News and served as a copy editor. He also wrote an outdoor column for two years.

Hancock was credited with breaking the story of an assassination attempt on Gov. J. Lindsay Almond Jr. in 1959 - during Virginia's struggle with "massive resistance" to the racial integration of public schools.

He volunteered for Army service in 1941, attended officer's candidate school and was commissioned a second lieutenant.

In 1943, as a young infantry platoon commander, he was captured by the Germans at the Kasserine Pass in North Africa and spent two years in prison camps, primarily in Poland.

Hancock was freed by Russian forces and made his way back to the states by way of Russia, Egypt and Italy. He retired as a reserve major.

More recently he served, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, as public relations officer for the Virginia State Defense Force.

He was involved in research for the Julian Wise Foundation, which will have a sizable exhibit at the Roanoke Valley Historical Society Museum. Wise founded the first rescue squad in the world here in the 1920s.

In 1982, his name showed up by mistake on a list of war dead that was to be etched on the Roanoke Valley War Memorial. Hancock wrote a humorous piece about it.

He won numerous awards for his reporting - including several first places in Virginia Press Association competition. The Medical Society of Virginia honored him in 1983 for his medical coverage.

Hancock was born in Itmann, W.Va., and grew up in Princeton, W.Va. He attended Concord College at Athens, W.Va., before the war.

Survivors include his wife, Clara "Mac" Hancock; three sons, Frank III and Gregory M. Hancock, both of Roanoke, and Charles M. Hancock, Germantown, Md.; his mother, Maude P. Hancock, Roanoke, and a sister, Alice Fleshman, Sun City West, Ariz.

Oakey's Downtown Chapel is in charge of arrangements. Roanoke Times, The (VA) - Friday, August 3, 1990

Birth	5 Aug 1921	Itmann, Wyoming, West Virginia
Residence	1930	Marital Status: Single; Relation to Head of House: Son - Wyoming County, West Virginia
Residence	1935 - 1993	Roanoke, Virginia
Marriage	7 Dec 1946	Roanoke, Virginia - Clara Louise McConnell
Residence	1953	Roanoke, Virginia
Death	3 Aug 1990	Roanoke, Virginia
Burial	3 Aug 1990	Roanoke, Virginia
Residence	1992	Roanoke, Virginia

Spouse	Clara Louise McConnell (1922 - 2007)
Child	Frank Pierce Hancock III
Child	Gregory McConell Hancock
Child	Charles Mitchell Hancock