Spring comes to the Valley

Golf Things Considered column by John Rogers
JSpencerRogers@msn.com  

Spring wanders into the Shenandoah Valley like a vagrant, on no particular schedule, and likely to jump a ride out of town just when we get used to him being there.

Technically, spring arrives around March 21, when the sun passes through the vernal equinox, whatever that means. But we know it’s spring by a million telltale signs – the resurrection of color in a vibrant array of shades, from the light cloak of buds some of the trees have taken on to the rich, verdant depth of fast-growing grass; to the yellow cloud of pine pollen shaken loose by an ever-warmer wind; to the shreds of pearl-colored virga; to the slanted shroud of rain hanging from a darker cloud, which decides not to jump to the thirsty red clay of Virginia below, but rather to hang on and hitch a ride with the towering cumulonimbus, which will cross the Alleghenies and then the Blue Ridge on its way to the Atlantic. Read more

Bolling picks up key endorsement

Story by Chris Graham

Former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore has weighed in on the Republican Party lieutenant-governor nomination battle – in favor of Mechanicville Sen. Bill Bolling.

Bolling, who is challenging Prince William County Board of Supervisors chair Sean Connaughton for the party nod, was a cosponsor of the legislation initiated by Gilmore that brought car-tax relief to Virginia residents in 1998. Read more

Should the GOP just leave Potts alone?

The Top Story by Chris Graham

He’s Br’er Rabbit, and the newspaper headlines are his Briar Patch.

Don’t keep threatening to kick me out of the party.

, Russ Potts says to Republicans, daily.A reporter might pick up on it, and that would spell my doom.

Actually, what has happened is that Potts, running for governor as a self-styled independent Republican, has had his profile raised immeasurably by the constant harping of GOP leaders upset that he is challenging party stalwart Jerry Kilgore from the outside. Read more

Davis fighting for heart and soul of GOP

Story by Chris Graham

Gil Davis views the campaign for the Republican Party lieutenant-governor nomination in stark black-and-white terms.

“We’re in a fight for the soul of the Republican Party that will determine whether we are the tax-and-spend party in Virginia or we are the party that aims to be fiscally responsible to the people of this great state,” the Fairfax attorney told The Augusta Free Press on Wednesday. Read more

Fix the finish

Golf Things Considered column by John Rogers
JSpencerRogers@msn.com  

When working with a golfer to improve his swing, one of my favorite methods is to fix the finish. What that means is that we make the finish of the swing, the follow-through, look good. The golfer gets to pose at the end of the swing, imagining, like I tell my junior golfers, that someone is taking a picture for Sports Illustrated. Fix the finish and hold the pose. Read more

The politics of teacher pay

The Top Story by Chris Graham

The group from John C. Myers Elementary School in Broadway was wrapping up its Thursday-afternoon field trip to downtown Harrisonburg when it happened upon a real-life civics lesson.

Republican Party gubernatorial-nomination candidate Jerry Kilgore was at a Court Square eatery holding court with reporters on the issue of, yep, you guessed it, public education. Read more