Tom Perriello: Focus on job creation

AFP

My top priority as your representative has been finding ways to encourage job growth and economic recovery in Central and Southern Virginia. We have made smart, strategic investments in infrastructure and workforce that position our area to be leaders in alternative energy production, advanced manufacturing, and other industries of tomorrow. But while we are working…

Local author publishes memoir in verse

AFP

Lena Cantrell McNicholas has done it again. Not only has she won awards for her writings, she has created her own memoir. Patchwork: Pieces of Appalachia has just hit the shelves and is laced with short stories, poems, songs and essays about her childhood and her friends and family. All of the stories and poems…

David Toscano: Inside the surplus

AFP

It is always better to have a surplus than have a deficit. Consequently, Governor McDonnell and many Virginians recently celebrated the fact that the Commonwealth will have a surplus at the end of the fiscal year. After all, who would not want a surplus? If we balance our family checkbook at the end of the…

Calling all UVa. football fans

Chris Graham

Edited by Chris Graham [email protected]   Virginia head football coach Mike London announced Monday he has purchased 100 season tickets in section 117 at Scott Stadium. Coach London will give away these season tickets for free to fans as prizes awarded through an essay contest. The winners will be a part of Mike London’s Fanatic…

Break in Harrington murder?

Chris Graham

State Police investigate link to ’05 Fairfax case Edited by Chris Graham [email protected]   Investigators are pursuing a forensic connection between the disappearance and death of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington and an unsolved 2005 abduction and sexual assault in Fairfax. Forensic evidence recovered during the course of the Harrington investigation has confirmed the link…

Good news, bad news about West End traffic

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected]   Lost in the discussion over the merits of the Waynesboro Place rezoning and its potential impact on traffic in the already-congested Lew Dewitt Boulevard-Rosser Avenue-Windigrove Drive area – the part about traffic in that part of town already being congested. “It doesn’t function to Level C that VDOT would…

Music exchange brings France, Staunton together

AFP

Edited by Chris Graham [email protected]   An international music exchange between Staunton and France gets back going this week with a visit by a group of French gospel singers to the Queen City. The group will arrive in Staunton later this week to begin preparations for a concert tour beginning Sunday, July 11, with a…

Jim Bishop: Their labor of love pays special tribute to a friend

Jim Bishop

Column by Jim Bishop Submit guest columns: [email protected]   It might even strike some as morose at first blush: asking friends to build your casket. But this poignant experience provided a tangible way for a group of church members to express a deep level of caring for the Wayne and Shannon Sneary family of Harrisonburg….

Fishersville Library opens new doors on June 19

Chris Graham

Edited by Chris Graham [email protected]   On Saturday, June 19, the Augusta County Library in Fishersville will welcome patrons through its new entrance. Facing Route 250, the main entrance will bring patrons into new and renovated space, including the former stage and reading garden. In the eight months since the groundbreaking ceremony for Phase 2…