EMU team shines at business competition

Jim Bishop

It was a simulation, but the experience felt authentic and “immensely practical” for the three Eastern Mennonite University student participants. So realistic, in fact, that Ashley Hevener, Kaleb Wyse and Joel Kratzer were selected as the top team for their presentation made at the annual convention of Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) held Nov. 6-9,…

Chris Graham | What’s wrong with the GOP?

Chris Graham

It isn’t just that Republicans got torched in the ’08 presidential election and the House and Senate elections to a point where President-elect Barack Obama has the clearest governing mandate since the first President Bush and an outside shot at a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate that would give his administration virtual carte blanche for…

Carl Larsen | Secrets of the hive revealed

Carl Larsen

Hollywood is still abuzz with the news: “The Secret Life of Bees,” currently at The Visulite in Staunton, is a honey of a movie. And while many films based on best-selling books are disappointing, you won’t get stung by this one. (OK, OK. Enough with the Apoidean puns, already. No more, I promise. Stretching for…

Va. not blue yet, governor says

Chris Graham

“It was really about the best night of my life,” Tim Kaine said of Election Night, which not only saw his long-time friend Mark Warner capture a landslide of landslides win over Jim Gilmore in their U.S. Senate race but also saw another friend, Barack Obama, win Virginia on his way to a historic triumph…

Steven Sisson | Prop 8: A taxing situation

Steven Sisson

Three states – Arizona, Florida and California – passed bans for gay marriages. The California ballot initiative that passed faces court challenges base on the California legislature’s lack of approval for a change in the constitution. Historically, the ballot initiative are based on previously referendum, or ballot initiatives to change the tax code – such…

A passion for reading

Chris Graham

Alycia Knicely, you could say, is familiar with the territory at Berkeley Glenn Elementary School. “I’ve been here for 16 years as a teacher. And I attended Berkeley Glenn as a child from kindergarten to sixth grade. And my parents live two doors down from the school. Still. Berkeley Glenn is home,” said Knicely, the…

Chris Graham | ‘W.’ as art, ‘Religulous’ as divine inspiration

Chris Graham

“I don’t know. She said she fell asleep, it was so bad.” This was the warning from my wife after one of our friends saw an early screening of Oliver Stone’s “W.,” a chronicle of the life and times of the 43rd President of the United States of America, who thankfully is weeks away from…

Building blocks

Chris Graham

There was no way, I told people, often, that Sam Rasoul doesn’t get at least 40 percent in his Sixth District race with Bob Goodlatte. The kid plain outworked Goodlatte from start to finish, and then, hey, wasn’t Goodlatte running commercials at the end, and telling audiences what he would do “if” he was re-elected…