Live Blog | The Chick-fil-A Bowl

  
Moderated by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

Join ACCVirginia.com in a Live Blog during the 2009 Chick-fil-A Bowl featuring Virginia Tech (9-3) and Tennessee (7-5).

The game is being broadcast nationally on ESPN at 7:30 p.m.

Editor Chris Graham will offer commentary and analysis during the game. Please feel free to join in with your thoughts and observations.

Staying bought

  
Column by David Reynolds
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I can’t wait for 2010! I can’t wait to see how 2009 will turn out. Yep, we are going into overtime. Too much is still up in the hot air of politics to be settled in twelve short months. Sure, a few minor clashes have been settled, but we won’t mess with those. For the new year our focus will remain on the real war and which party will win its big bet. 

So keep the bubbly on ice. Don’t pop any corks. The parties are far from over. The Republicans and Democrats are fighting a life and death struggle. The outcome will not only determine your life, but, more importantly, as life is viewed in our Nation’s Capital, which party will whither away and die. Read more

London adds another ex-UR staffer

  
Atkinson becomes fourth to follow coach to UVa.

Staff Report
UVa. sports: www.virginiasports.com

Virginia head football coach Mike London has added Steve Atkinson to his staff as the director of player development. Atkinson rejoins London after spending the last two seasons as the director of football operations at Richmond.

“I have been lucky to spend the past two seasons with Steve and he will be bringing a lot of practical experience to UVa,” said London. “He has a vast knowledge of the areas that impact our student-athletes and will be an excellent off-the-field resource for them to maximize their total experience at UVa. He will be a tremendous benefit to the program.”

Atkinson directed the day-to-day operations of the Richmond football office as the Spiders won the FCS National Championship in 2008 and most recently, a CAA co-championship in 2009. Prior to Richmond, Atkinson was the defensive coordinator at Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts and served the same role for the varsity club team at George Mason over a four-year span. Atkinson served as the webmaster for the George Mason varsity club football site, recruiting coordinator and camp director. Read more

Focus | From the Queen City to Oxford

Staunton native named Rhodes Scholar

Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

Many, one would assume, do it for the prestige. Tyler Spencer applied for a Rhodes Scholarship as a matter of practicality.

“I have wanted to get a masters to strengthen my nonprofit work, but I have been frustrated by how much most good programs cost,” said Spencer, a 2008 University of Virginia graduate and Staunton native who in November was named a Rhodes Scholar.

Spencer, 23, a graduate of R.E. Lee High School in Staunton, settled after his graduation from UVa. in Washington, D.C., where he founded and directs a nonprofit, Athletes United for Social Justice, that trains college athletes to be HIV/AIDS educators. That part of his life came about as a result of work he did in Africa training pro soccer players to be mentors to youths. Read more

The Queen has left the throne, Long Live the Queen

 
Column by Jim Bishop
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A ceramic pitcher with a Stangl design, sketched by my brother, J. Eric Bishop, appeared on the cover of the memorial service program above the Scripture verse, “Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her” (Prov. 31:29).

The image and words befit the late Ann Dayton Bishop, 88, whose life we gathered to commemorate. All five of her children have Stangl dinnerware in their homes. Anna and I have used Stangl plates, side dishes and coffee cups nearly every day over our 43 years of marriage. Read more

For New Year 2010, resolve to be a smarter consumer

  
Column by Todd Haymore
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As you’re kicking off your New Year’s resolutions, here’s something to put at the top of your list: remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In my two-and-a-half years as Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, that is something our staff members in the Office of Consumer Affairs have drilled into my head. Let me say it again: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Read more

Dominion Power rates to drop - slightly - effective Jan. 1

  
Staff Report
News Tips: freepress2@ntelos.net

Rates for Dominion Virginia Power customers will be reduced on Jan. 1, 2010, in accordance with changes approved by the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC). For the typical residential customer who uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, the net result is a decrease in the monthly electric bill of 87 cents, or 0.8 percent, from $109.23 to $108.36.

The SCC ordered Dec. 16 that the interim fuel factor be reduced to 2.927 cents per kWh, which translates to a reduction of $3.83 per month for the typical residential customer. The reduction was based on data the company submitted on the continuing declines in prices for coal, natural gas and other fuel used to generate electricity.

The fuel factor also was reduced in July and October 2009. The three adjustments result in reducing the typical residential customer’s bill by a total of $9.66 per month. Read more

Focus | Morton: A ‘principled conservative’

Fifth District GOP candidate builds support toward run for party nod

Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

The Fifth District is a living laboratory to Fluvanna County biology teacher Feda Morton, a veteran Republican Party activist seeking the GOP nomination to run for Congress in the Fifth. All Morton has to do over the course of the next 11 months is dissect a seven-candidate field in a June primary and then get to the heart of the Tom Perriello phenomenon that turned the Fifth blue in ‘08.

“I’m very concerned about the economy, about states’ rights, about the people’s rights. I feel that our constitutional rights are being run roughshod over, and that we need to have principled conservative leadership in Washington to get back to what the founders meant for this country to be, and for the free-market and free-enterprise system to be stabilized so we can prosper. And Tom Perriello is not a match for the Fifth District, and is not voting the will of the people of this district,” said Morton, who has been working to build a campaign strong both at the grassroots and at the top, picking up the endorsements of Republican National Committee members Morton Blackwell and Kathy Hayden Terry. Read more

Slower turn toward recovery?

  
Staff Report
News Tips: freepress2@ntelos.net

Most turnaround professionals predict a hard slog toward economic recovery in 2010 as businesses weighed down by debt hit rough patches and credit markets shun them.

Nearly half (49 percent) the respondents to the Turnaround Management Association’s distressed industries forecast think durable economic improvement is unlikely until at least the second half of 2010. About three out of 10 think the worst is over, but nearly 20 percent suggest the economy has yet to hit rock bottom. Read more

The case for a strong estate tax

  
Column by Brian Miller
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On New Year’s Day the estate tax, an essential part of the U.S. tax system for nearly 100 years, will disappear because Congress failed to act in December. Congressional leaders now are pledging to act in early 2010 to reinstate the federal estate tax retroactive to Jan. 1. In the meantime, rhetoric over the estate tax will heat up while Congress grapples with what to do now. Read more

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