My night at the T-Pain concert

Chris Graham

Story by Faryal Zubair For someone who has never been to a concert before, the thrill of this night was beyond any expectation. James Madison University’s Convocation Center, screaming fans, and lots of energy are some of the few things that T-Pain’s concert had to offer. The biggest attention-grabber was of course, T-Pain.

These things could happen, but I have my doubts …

Jim Bishop

Column by Jim Bishop It’s rather unsettling. Just when I start to scrawl ideas for another article in my church bulletin, our interim pastor Shirley Yoder Brubaker corrals my wandering mind with another sermon zinger: “I don’t usually title my messages,” she states, “but were I to label this one, it would be ‘sacred ambiguity.’”…

The Senior Boom: Are we ready to expand services to increasingly aging population?

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] It was hard enough getting Kitty Lough to go into an independent-living facility, harder still to get her to accept the change in her lifestyle. She never would have guessed back then that she’d miss it as much as she does now. “She’s finally gotten over the stage of saying,…

Queen of the Queen City: Rita Wilson retiring after 16-plus years on Staunton City Council

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] She wasn’t trying to be Rosa Parks. “We were just tired of the separate-but-equal thing. Because it certainly wasn’t separate-but-equal,” said Rita Wilson, who is retiring from Staunton City Council on June 30 after 16-plus years on the job, and who a generation ago made her first foray into public…

Economic immunity: Are the Valley and Central Virginia recession-proof?

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] The Shenandoah Valley is recession-proof. Charlottesville is recession-proof. I’ve heard people say this for years. As the argument goes, the local economies have two big things going for them – major universities and agriculture. Kids still go to school in recessions. And kids and everybody else still eat in recessions….

Is minor-league baseball good economic development?

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] I wanted to learn more about what Waynesboro could be facing if it follows through the very, very preliminary plans that have been put forth regarding the possible location of a minor-league baseball team in the River City. That’s how I came across Gary Hodge and his 20-year effort to…

The Top Story: 25K to I-A?

Contributors

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] A 25,000-seat stadium in I-AA football – sorry, but I refuse to go with that stupid new nomenclature that divides college football’s Division I into a Bowl Subdivision and a Championship Subdivision, and really, you should, too … Ahem. Sorry. I allowed myself to get off track there. What I…

Breaking down the GOP Senate race

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham [email protected] The last time that you were paying any attention to the U.S. Senate race, former governor Jim Gilmore was the Republican candidate. Be careful now, though, because Gilmore has two opponents for that GOP nomination that you might have assumed was an automatic. Northern Virginia state delegate Bob…