
Text: McDonnell’s State of the Commonwealth Address
Gov. Bob McDonnell delivers the 2013 State of the Commonwealth Address to the Virgnia General Assembly.

Gov. Bob McDonnell delivers the 2013 State of the Commonwealth Address to the Virgnia General Assembly.

Gov. Bob McDonnell Wednesday announced the membership of his newly-created Task Force of School and Campus Safety. The membership includes educators, public safety experts, local leaders, mental health practitioners, legislators, parents, and students.

Surrounded by teachers, educators, legislators, students, parents and representatives from several leading education organizations, Gov. Bob McDonnell on Thursday rolled out additional initiatives of his K-12 education agenda at Goochland Middle School.

Virginia head football coach Mike London announced today the hiring of four assistant coaches to fill the vacancies on the Cavalier staff. Joining the Virginia football program are former NC State and Boston College head coach Tom O’Brien, 32-year college coaching veteran Jon Tenuta and 12-year college special teams coach Jeff Banks. Former UVa quarterback Marques Hagans has been promoted to a full-time position after serving as a graduate assistant coach at Virginia the past two seasons.

The Staunton Augusta Art Center announces art classes for the months of January and February. Pre-registration is required one week prior to the start of each series of classes. Pre-register by calling the Staunton Augusta Art Center at 540-885-2028. All materials are provided in children’s classes. A materials list will be provided for the adult and high school classes.

The National Rifle Association pledged to offer “meaningful contributions” to make sure that school shootings like the one last week in Newtown, Conn., that took the lives of 26, including 20 first-graders, would never happen again. Those “contributions” took on a familiar form on Friday, with the gun-rights lobby attacking gun-control laws and unveiling a plan to placed armed guards in every school in America.

Charlottesville author brings introspective novel for reading/signing event: The Algebra of Snow–A Bedtime Story for My Mother, by Ginger Moran, Saturday, Dec. 22, 2-4 p.m., Bookworks, 101 W. Beverley St., Staunton.

One in three households own a gun. That means two in three don’t. Wonder what that might mean? Not to say that everyone among the two in three that don’t own a gun by definition are automatically in favor of strict gun control, but let’s just say this – there’s a reason those folks have enacted their own strict household gun-control policy.

Gov. Bob McDonnell unveiled his proposed amendments to the 2012- 2014 budget in a speech to the Joint Money Committees of the General Assembly Monday morning in Richmond.

Sign up now for a children’s secret workshop on Saturday, Dec. 8, 10 a.m.-noon.
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