Key civic leaders fighting to save the Waco Veterans Affairs Hospital from downsizing or closure said they believed they made good impressions on VA Secretary Jim Nicholson during his Thursday tour of the hospital campus.

They also said they realized, more than ever, the need to make a well-researched, air-tight case for expanding the hospital's mission in psychiatric care, treatment of post traumatic stress disorders and blind rehabilitation.

VA officials have proposed moving the facility's services to areas with growing veterans populations, specifically Temple and Austin.

Waco attorney and hospital supporter Coke Mills, who serves on a local advisory panel charged by Secretary Nicholson with crafting options for the hospital's future, said it was important Nicholson got to see the hospital and its services up close.

"He acknowledged, and he is one of the first to do this, that they had underestimated the demand for services by people coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan," Mills said. "He acknowledged that, which was good, and he acknowledged the fact that they are significantly underfunded."

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, and other hospital defenders have spent months protesting any change in the Waco VA Hospital mission, citing among other things an Army study reporting that one in six soldiers returning from war shows symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder.

Mills said the visit also helped give local leaders a better understanding of how the hospital review process works. For instance, it became clear that the city must work to firm up ideas on filling vacant buildings on the 127-acre VA hospital campus.

"We need to come up with more definite suggestions," Mills said.

Local veterans leader Bill Mahon, who said he initially feared Nicholson was resolved to shutter or downsize the hospital, said Friday he believes the community made a good impression on the secretary. A motorcycle escort coordinated by area veterans was just one aspect of that.

Also, local officials kept Nicholson's interest during their presentations, Mahon said, and appeared to give him new facts.

"I think he learned a few things he wasn't aware of," Mahon said. "Unlike (former VA Secretary Anthony J.) Principi, he was taking notes (during the presentations) ... and every once in a while, I heard him say, 'I didn't know that' or 'That's new to me.'"

Former Waco mayor Linda Ethridge, who heads up a task force to save the hospital, said she thinks the visit will help Nicholson when he makes a decision about the hospital's fate early next year.

She also said he got the message that the hospital is important to Central Texas. He specifically mentioned how involved Edwards and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, have been in the matter.

"Certainly he recognized the intense and broad-based support for the hospital," Ethridge said.

Ethridge said she also thinks the presentation city leaders made to Nicholson about their plan for the campus was well received. The speakers only had time to hit highlights and there wasn't much exchange afterwards, she said, but Nicholson said he appreciated that the city was trying to find a "win-win" approach.

However, Ethridge cautioned that the committee process embraced by the VA in analyzing the hospital's pros and cons leaves little room for impressions apart from hard data.