Delegates itching for a fight needed to go elsewhere than the annual council of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia Feb. 4-6 at a Roanoke hotel.

Aside from one proposed change that was incorporated into the diocesan budget, neither resolutions nor any other business before council engendered any debate.

"We have a fundamentally new way of doing business," said the Rt. Rev. Neff Powell, Bishop of Southwestern Virginia. "We should be proud that we have conducted diocesan business and concluded it on a positive note."

Delegates welcomed Horace Clarence Boyer, a retired professor from the University of Massachusetts, as council keynote speaker. Mr. Boyer warmed many delegates to African-American hymnody found in Lift Every Voice and Sing II. Said Mr. Boyer to delegates on their second attempt at a traditional gospel hymn, "Come to this music with everything you have and it will all get sorted out as we go along."

The budget, in the amount of $737,000, was adopted on Saturday. A request to reinstate funds that had been cut from the budget for The Southwestern Episcopalian was the only significant change made during the council meeting. The cut represented the cost of one issue of The Southwestern and Episcopal Life.

Several members of the Roanoke convocation presented resolution #7, which declared opposition to any prohibition of teaching scientific theory, including the theory of evolution, in public schools.