Uphill battle: What Jim Gilmore needs to do to have a shot at upsetting Mark Warner

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] So you’re Jim Gilmore, and you’re running for the United States Senate. You’ve served as a state attorney general, running the biggest law firm in the state for four pretty solid years. You’re a former governor who won election by a comfortable margin over a two-term Democratic lieutenant governor in…

The future of higher education

Chris Graham

Column by Bob Goodlatte For many students and families, there is the promise of higher education. But for far too many others, the burden of tuition costs is seemingly insurmountable. In Virginia, undergraduate students are paying nearly 7 percent more in tuition and fees than they did last year. The skyrocketing cost of higher education…

Recession … or slowdown?

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] University of Virginia professor Peter Rodriguez is avoiding using the word recession right now. He’s one of the few people that I know of who is doing this, so I want to give him credit. “My take would be that we have entered a slowdown,” said Rodriguez, a business-administration professor…

A different kind of ministry

Contributors

Story by Laura Lehman Amstutz Many people prefer to avoid hospitals and nursing homes, but many Eastern Mennonite Seminary graduates have chosen these places to do ministry. About a dozen recent EMS graduates are pursuing chaplaincy roles as their ministry field, partially due to the Clinical Pastoral Education program at EMS. CPE gives students opportunity…

House releases conservative budget

Chris Graham

General Assembly Report by Rob Bell With the worsening budget numbers, the House of Delegates released its biennial budget. Unlike the governor’s budget, the House budget does not cut $220 million in school construction and lottery money that was going to local schools. These cuts would have cost my four local school divisions over $3…

Our sixth week

Chris Graham

Column by Steve Landes We have now passed the midway point of the 2008 General Assembly session, commonly referred to as “crossover.” The House passed 616 of the 1,576 bills filed by delegates and the Senate approved 433 of the 795 bills filed by senators. Now, the House will spend the bulk of its time…

Pastor to speak at EMU on race

Jim Bishop

Story by Jim Bishop A prominent pastor and community activist in Washington, D.C., will speak at Eastern Mennonite University as part of Afro-American History Month observances. Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, senior minister of Plymouth Congregational Church in the nation’s capitol, will speak 10 a.m. Friday in EMU’s Lehman Auditorium. His message, entitled “From the Past…

Inside Tuesday’s Valley primaries

Contributors

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] I look at the voter turnout in Tuesday’s presidential primaries here in the Central Shenandoah Valley, the breadbasket of the Virginia GOP, and have to wonder about the fall elections. It was a bare majority, but still a majority, of voters who voted the Democratic primaries in Greater Harrisonburg and…