It was the mid-1950s. A bottle of soda cost 6 cents. If you wanted to fill a cooler, you had to chip a large block of ice by hand. This is what a young Pat Cupp did each summer day he accompanied his developer father to construction sites in Blacksburg.

Cupp and his father would leave their Narrows, Va. home at 5:30 a.m. and arrive at the site before the workers started their shift at 7:30. It wasn't long before the workers grew thirsty in the heat. Cupp sold them sodas from his cooler for 10 cents each.

Business was good. Until one day, when Cupp's supplier raised the price of sodas to 7 cents. Cupp, in turn, raised his resale price to 11 cents. He found no buyers.Cupp asked his dad what to do. His dad said, "I guess you're going out of business, or you're going to lower your price." Cupp lowered his price back to 10 cents and absorbed the loss--and a valuable lesson in economics.

A few summers later, Cupp began to earn wages from his father as a construction laborer. He decided not to sell the bottles of soda anymore. It didn't seem worth the effort. The elder Cupp, however, advised his son not to stop providing the service that the workers had come to expect.

"But I don't like doing it anymore," said Cupp.

"And I don't like you driving, either, at age 16," said his father.

Cupp got the message. Learning to drive was part of becoming an adult; so was sticking to one's commitments.

By the time Cupp enrolled at Virginia Tech in 1959, he already had years of business experience from working with his father. At Tech, Cupp took courses in nearly every conceivable subject: engineering, business, English, social sciences, math, history. At the same time, his business instinct led him to become manager and part-owner of Triangle Lanes bowling alley in Christiansburg.

Cupp balanced work and studies throughout the 1960s. He even found time for extracurriculars such as running track, writing for the Virginia Tech (now the Collegiate Times), and participating in Phi Sigma fraternity.

At a Christmas party in 1969, just over a decade after Cupp first enrolled at the university, Virginia Tech president T. Marshall Hahn approached Cupp and said, "You've got to graduate."

"Why?" asked Cupp. With a successful business to run, Cupp didn't need a degree to get a job. Anyway, he liked being a student.

"But you can't go to school forever," said Hahn.

"I know people who've been going to school eight or nine years," countered Cupp.

"They get Ph.D.s," said Hahn, who threatened to enact a statute of limitations if Cupp did not graduate soon.

Cupp couldn't tell if Hahn was serious about the statute of limitations, but Hahn's insistence that Cupp graduate made an impact. Cupp took a fresh look at his transcript and discovered that he needed only 18 more credit hours of sociology to graduate with a degree in that subject.

So, Cupp completed the 18 credit hours in one quarter, and graduated. It was 1970. Cupp had been enrolled at Tech for 11 years and amassed 225 credit hours--possibly the undergraduate record at Tech. But Cupp has no regrets about his extended undergraduate experience. "I've used every course I had in my business and personal life," he says.

Cupp entered the real estate business in 1979 as a sales associate with Townside Realtors. In early 1983, he became a broker and started his own firm, Patrick D. Cupp and Associates. It would prove to be one of the most important years of his life. Not only did Cupp's business start to boom--he opened several rental units in time for fall semester--but his personal life hit a new high as well. Cupp proposed to his girlfriend, Sandy, and the couple married in December at War Memorial Chapel.

Sandy left her position as a vice president at Central Fidelity Bank to help Cupp run his new business. Cupp was thrilled at how neatly their relationship worked out: "I not only had a wife and partner, but a banker, to boot!"

Like most companies, it took years to become profitable. Patrick D. Cupp and Associates now consists of 68 different locations and more than 650 rental units in Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and Radford.

But as potentially lucrative as it is, real estate is still one of the toughest businesses, says Cupp. To be successful, you must have the stomach for it. You must know the legal ins and outs. You must have an uncanny knack for seeing potential. And you simply must be willing to work very hard.

There's no such thing as a Midas touch, Cupp seems to say. But, with his formula for success, does Cupp love his work? Yes. Does he think he has a "dream job"? Well, not exactly.

"It's not so much I like the long and demanding hours, but that's the way it works in this business," says Cupp. The early lessons his father taught him come through loud and clear.

The Cupps are now teaching their three grandchildren the same lessons in business, hard work, and practicality. The 14-year-old eldest picks some of the stocks for her college investment fund. If she makes a choice Cupp thinks is unwise, he lets her buy a small amount of shares anyway. He wants her to learn from making her own choices, just as his father allowed him to do.

Talented in dance and art, Cupp's eldest granddaughter will probably be a liberal arts major. But Cupp wants her to learn practical skills, such as investing, as well. At the end of the year, she does the taxes on her fund and is allowed to keep a small percentage of the returns. When the time is right, she will be responsible for teaching her two younger siblings how to manage their own funds.

Investing well appears to be second nature to Cupp. One of Cupp's properties, recently appraised for $700,000, cost only a fraction of that amount when he bought it in 1986. The Cupps donated the property to Tech, with the understanding that Tech use its value to renovate the men's basketball locker room and to build a recreation center for the football team.

The men's basketball locker room has been completed, with a lounge, large-screen TV, trophy display case, and large, open lockers with each player's name painted above his locker in maroon. Other equipment purchased includes high-tech video equipment that allows the basketball team to study their and other teams' moves.

The recreation center for the football team, now in progress, will have a large-screen TV and pool tables. The center will adjoin the team's locker room and provide a place for the players to relax any time they desire. A contribution to the Merryman Athletic Center will also come from the donation.

Given Cupp's strong support of Tech's athletic program--he's missed only two home football games since 1959--it's no surprise that he designated a portion of his donation toward athletics. Another portion of the money will go toward Tech's new Civil War Center and toward the Talbot Fund for small animal population control at the vet school.

Always eager to be involved in worthy causes, Cupp has served on multiple boards and as president of the Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce, the New River Valley Association of Realtors, and more than a dozen other organizations.

With his keen interest in governmental affairs, Cupp is a past member of Governor Allen's Economic Development Council and the Governor's Commission on Welfare Reform. Currently, he serves on Governor Gilmore's World Trade Alliance. Cupp ran for state senate in 1995, losing by only 2,500 votes; he hasn't ruled out running for an elective office again someday.

One thing is for certain: Cupp isn't slowing down anytime soon.