Special Report: Can Waynesboro be a tourist destination?

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Report by Chris Graham
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Waynesboro doesn’t have a facility like The Biltmore to pull people down off the Blue Ridge Parkway like Asheville, N.C., has. But what if it did?

Consider that between 2 and 3 million visitors go in and out of the Shenandoah National Park each year, and 20 million people travel the Blue Ridge Parkway each year.

“When you consider that you’re strategically located between those two, that’s something that no other community can boast. No one else can say that they are located in between those two huge tourism assets. That’s tremendous untapped potential there,” said Brian Ososky, the executive director of the Shenandoah Valley Travel Association, which coordinates tourism-marketing efforts for localities from the Roanoke Valley to the Winchester area.
  

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Redux of political pendulum swings

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Report by Chris Graham
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Might we see a repeat of 1994 in 2010? The short answer: yes. Next question: Might we then see a repeat of 1996 in 2012? Well, maybe.

“For all the trouble Barack Obama’s had lately voters still prefer him to any of the top Republican contenders for 2012,” said Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, which polled 743 registered voters in February and found the Democrat Obama leading all of the top potential 2012 Republican Party hopefuls at this very, very early stage more than two and a half years out from the November 2012 presidential election.

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Staff
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AugustaFreePress.com announces on March 1 that it is making exclusive staff-produced news and information content available to readers on a subscription basis.

“The move to a paid-content model allows us to continue producing original news stories by giving us a potential new stream of revenues to account for the expenses that we incur in our news-gathering operations,” AugustaFreePress.com Publisher Crystal Graham said.

Revenues for AugustaFreePress.com have steadily declined as the parent company for the local-news website, Augusta Free Press Publishing, has seen its web- and graphic-design divisions grow significantly in recent months.

“This move is our move to attempt to justify the work that we do to produce award-winning news content from a bottom-line perspective,” said Chris Graham, the editor of AugustaFreePress.com and its sister print magazine, The New Dominion Magazine, the winner of three Virginia Press Association magazine awards in 2009. Read more

David Reynolds: Sinful solutions

Column by David Reynolds
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How’s business? You know, at your store. You say you don’t own a store. Sure you do. You and I own a whole chain of stores clear across the Commonwealth. I know that they are sometimes easy to overlook. They are small and we tend to hide them in old strip malls. But what is great is that our customers seem to have no trouble finding us. And they don’t object to our prices, unless they live near our borders. There we have competition. And as store owners we hate competition. But let’s be thankful for government. They hate competition, too.

By now if you haven’t figured out the subject of this week’s sermon you need to get another bottle. It should be as easy as ABC. In Virginia we know what those three letters stand for. It is All But Competition, in other words, revenue, revenue and more revenue.

So, how do you feel about owning a string of liquor stores? Actually, you should feel good. They make money, and not just during the holiday season. All of our ABC stores operate in the black, No other state agency can make that claim!

Yet in spite of their profitable operations, however slim, our new governor, that good looking Irish fellow, wants to shut them down – and let liquor stores spring up everywhere, except, of course, in the Drug Free Zone surrounding your kid’s school.  Read more

Virginia Politics Notebook: Monday, March 1

- Court News: Supreme Court rules man was denied due process in drug court
- D.C. News: Perriello blasts Senate Republicans on unemployment benefits
- Op-Ed: Bill Bolling on jobs, opportunity agenda
 

Edited by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
  

Court News: Supreme Court rules man was denied due process in drug court In a unanimous decision, the Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that when a criminal defendant enters a drug court treatment program as part of a plea bargain, termination from the program may not be used as a basis for conviction and sentencing unless the defendant is afforded a hearing on the reasons for the termination.

Judson Harris was charged with felony drug possession in Fredericksburg in 2005. He agreed to a plea bargain that allowed him to enter the Rappahannock Area Regional Drug Treatment Court Program, which offers drug treatment and rehabilitation while imposing strict behavioral guidelines. Under the plea agreement, if Harris successfully completed the drug court program, his charges would be dismissed. If he failed to complete the program, he could be convicted and sentenced to three years in prison with all but six months suspended. Read more

Sports Roundup: Monday, March 1

- UVa. sports: Punchless Cavs fall to #5 Duke
- UVa. sports: #1 UVa. baseball finishes off weekend sweep
- UVa. sports: Wright leads ‘Hoos to win over Tech
- JMU sports: UC-Irvine rallies to knock off JMU baseball
 

Edited by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
  

UVa. sports: Punchless Cavs fall to #5 Duke Sylven Landesberg was out with a thigh bruise. Virginia was out of punch.

#5 Duke rolled to an early 20-4 lead and was never challenged en route to an easy 67-49 victory at UVa. Sunday night.

Senior center Jerome Meyinsse scored a career-high 21 points for Virginia, but junior forward Mike Scott, the Cavs’ second leading scorer on the season, went scoreless for a second straight game, going 0-for-6 from the field.

Kyle Singler led Duke (25-4, 12-2 ACC) with 21 points.

The loss was the seventh in a row for Virginia (14-13, 5-9 ACC). Read more

Live Blog: UVa. vs. Duke

Moderated by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
  

ACCVirginia.com is live at the John Paul Jones Arena for tonight’s men’s basketball game between the University of Virginia (14-12, 5-8 ACC) and #5 Duke (24-4, 11-2 ACC).

The opening tip is scheduled for 7:45 p.m. The game is being broadcast on Fox SportsNet.

Editor Chris Graham is courtside and will provide score updates and analysis and commentary during the game.

Protected: I Love The ’90s, Part Two

Protected: Special Report-Can Waynesboro be a tourist destination?

Sports Roundup: Sunday, Feb. 28

- Virginia Tech sports: Hokies drop double-OT heartbreaker
- VMI sports: Coastal rallies from halftime deficit to blow past VMI
   

Edited by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
  

Virginia Tech sports: Hokies drop double-OT heartbreaker Virginia Tech was able to rally twice to extend Maryland, but the Terps rode Greivis Vasquez and clutch free-throw shooting in the second overtime to a 104-100 victory over the Hokies in Blacksburg Saturday night.

The game was delayed three hours due to a series of water-main breaks caused by a traffic accident near Cassell Coliseum earlier Saturday. Then fans were treated to a late night after Malcolm Delaney answered an Eric Hayes jumper by driving the length of the court for a game-tying layin with nine-tenths of a second left to send the game to overtime with the score tied at 82.

Vasquez, who scored a game-high 41 points, 33 after halftime, missed a three-pointer with five seconds left in the first overtime and the score tied at 89 to send the game to a second OT. Read more

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