Our Team
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Augusta Free Press launched in 2002, with the idea of co-founders Crystal Graham and Chris Graham being, start with online news, eventually leading into a print weekly newspaper.
It became obvious a few months in that we could reach a lot more people online than we ever could afford to in print.
It took a while to figure out how to make money at it, but in the meantime, we built up audiences for:
- local news focusing on Staunton, Waynesboro and Augusta County, Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, Nelson County, and Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
- state and national politics, with our focus being on how what’s going on in the world of politics affects our local readers, but we do that well enough that folks from across the Commonwealth and across the Mid-Atlantic started tuning in, and have hung around.
- UVA Athletics. Wahoowa!
Our team includes a mix of award-winning journalists, authors and broadcasters who are good at diving into what’s going on, digging up facts and telling interesting stories.
We used to jump up and down giddily when we’d get 100 page views in a single day; we’re now getting just short of 8 million page views a year.
Maybe one day, we’ll get around to that weekly newspaper.
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Chris Graham, Managing Editor and Founder
email: [email protected]
Chris Graham, the editor of Augusta Free Press, an award-winning journalist and editor, and a 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, has won 17 Virginia Press Association awards for his work as an investigative reporter, feature writer and columnist.
An author of seven books, Chris co-wrote Team of Destiny: Inside Virginia Basketball’s Run to the 2019 National Championship, published in 2019, and also co-wrote a book on the history of University of Virginia basketball, Mad About U: Four Decades of Basketball at University Hall, which was published in 2006.
Chris is also a sports broadcaster with experience as a play-by-play man and color analyst on ESPN3 and ESPN+ broadcasts of baseball, basketball, football and soccer.
From 2009-2014, Chris was the play-by-play voice of the Waynesboro Generals, a team competing in the Valley Baseball League, a premier college summer baseball league affiliated with Major League Baseball and the NCAA.
The former co-host of “ACC Nation,” a syndicated radio show that ran for four years, ending in 2007, and regular guest host of WMRA’s “Virginia Insight,” Chris is currently a contributor to “The Mark Moses Show” on 95.9-The Fan in Melbourne, Fla.
Chris also served as a member of the creative team and on-air TV commentator for Awesome Wrestling Entertainment on AWE’s “Night of the Legends” live pay-per-view event in 2011. Chris wrote a book on that experience, The Worst Wrestling Pay-Per-View Ever, that was published in 2018.
He is also the former co-host of “Viewpoints” on WVPT, a weekly news affairs TV show that aired from 2016-2017.
Crystal Abbe Graham, Digital Editor
email: [email protected]
Crystal covers issues including mental health, LGBTQ rights, housing insecurity, animal welfare, weather and health. She also works with partners to establish compelling guest content to share with readers and handles marketing inquiries for national and regional businesses.
A 1999 graduate of Virginia Tech, she has worked in print and broadcast journalism for more than two decades. Crystal began her professional career at The News Virginian (Waynesboro, Va.) in 1999. She has worked as a reporter and editor for several Virginia publications and has won more than a dozen Virginia Press Association awards for writing and graphic design.
She was the co-host of “Viewpoints,” a weekly TV news show on WVPT, a PBS affiliate in Harrisonburg, Va., from 2016-2017, and co-host of “Virginia Tonight,” a nightly TV news show on WVPT that aired from 2004-2005. Her work on “Virginia Tonight” earned her a national Telly award for excellence in television.
Crystal has dedicated more than a decade to efforts to end suicide, both as a volunteer and in a professional capacity. She served as the state director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for one year overseeing community and campus walks that secured 120 corporate sponsorships and raised nearly $650,000. She received training and was certified to teach SafeTalk, a half-day workshop designed to prepare community members to become suicide alert helpers. For her role in suicide prevention, she was honored with the Dr. and Mrs. C. Lennart Sanquist Prevention Award from Mental Health America of Augusta.
She is also a content creator on two platforms: Instagram and TikTok.
Posts written by Crystal Graham
David Driver, Contributor
A former sports editor of papers in Virginia and Maryland, he is a member of the United States Basketball Writers Association.
Of note, he covered the Washington Nationals during their 2019 World Series season.
He is the author of Hoop Dreams in Europe: American Basketball Players Building Careers Overseas, and the co-author, with University of Virginia graduate Lacy Lusk, of From Tidewater to the Shenandoah: Snapshots from Virginia’s Rich Baseball Legacy.
Both are available on Amazon, at Rocktown Museum in Dayton, Parentheses bookstore in Harrisonburg and at daytondavid.com, and the baseball book is sold at Barnes & Noble in Harrisonburg.
Scott German, Contributor
Scott German covers UVA Athletics for Augusta Free Press, and is the co-host of “Street Knowledge” podcasts focusing on UVA Athletics with AFP editor Chris Graham.
Scott has been around the ‘Hoos his whole life.
As a reporter, he was on site for two UVA Basketball Final Fours, in 1981 and 1984, and has covered UVA Football in bowl games dating back to its first, the 1984 Peach Bowl.
Mike Ingalls, Contributor
Ingalls is best known for launching The Sabre, which began as VirginiaFootball.com back in 1996.
Rod Mullins, Contributor
Rod Mullins covers NASCAR for AFP, the co-host of “Street Knowledge” podcasts focusing on NASCAR with AFP editor Chris Graham, and is the editor of Dickenson Media.
A graduate of UVA-Wise, Rod began his career in journalism as a reporter for The Cumberland Times, later became the program director/news director/on-air morning show host for WNVA in Norton, Va., and in the early 1990s served as the sports information director at UVA-Wise and was the radio “Voice of the Highland Cavaliers” for football and basketball for seven seasons.
In 1995, Rod transitioned to public education, where he has worked as a high school English, literature, and creative writing teacher and now serves as a school program coordinator in addition to serving as a mentor for the robotics team.
Ray Petree, Contributor
Michael Schoeffel, Contributor
Michael Schoeffel is a writer, firefighter, husband, and father based in Staunton. You can check out more of his work on his Substack and Ourland Mag.
Posts written by Michael Schoeffel
Bob Stuart, Contributor
Stuart has focused on politics, religion, education, courts and police stories. He has been honored by the Virginia Press Association and South Carolina Press Association for his work.
He is a graduate of the University of Richmond.
Chris Graham
