EMU now offering new undergrad majors in peacebuilding, environmental sustainability

Eastern Mennonite University is offering two new undergraduate majors, “peacebuilding and development” and “environmental sustainability,” that draw on EMU’s core values in these areas. Both programs will provide hands-on opportunities for students to be agents of change in their local communities and around the world, combining a concern for the earth and its people and…

Candidate for registrar appointment comes forward – sorta, kinda

I have finally made contact with the finalist for the Waynesboro voter registrar’s job, and she is “boiling” after reading the lead article in the June New Dominion Magazine, “‘The secrecy thing’: Did ‘done deal’ appointment skirt law?,” on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that led to another candidate getting the job.

The final polls, my prediction, more

Chris Graham

Two new polls out Monday have Bath County State Sen. Creigh Deeds building a commanding lead in the Democratic Party gubernatorial primary heading into the Tuesday state primary. The final pre-election Public Policy Polling poll has Deeds at 40 percent, with former nomination frontrunner Terry McAuliffe at 26 percent and former Northern Virginia lawmaker Brian…

‘The secrecy thing’: Did ‘done deal’ appointment skirt law?

Chris Graham

Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008, 2:28 p.m. Waynesboro voter registrar Mary Alice Downs hits Send on an e-mail to Nelson County voter registrar Lisa Wooten. “I thought I would just touch base with you and see if you still have an interest in a move to Waynesboro? My Board is trying to plan for the upcoming…

The ACV is back

Contributors

If I want to know what’s going on with the Artisans Center of Virginia, the easiest way for me to find out is to get up from my computer, walk down the hall toward my old office on the other side of the Augusta Free Press Publishing building and ask Sherri Smith, the ACV’s new…

A real free choice

Chris Graham

George Waksmunski has seen it happen. “Workers are terrorized when they attempt to organize a union,” said Waksmunski, the national representative for UE Local 123 in Verona. “Bosses tell them from day one, You’re going to lose your job, the plant’s going to close, the union’s going to go on strike, you’ll get nothing, we…

Growing up at FMS

Chris Graham

Liam McNamara remembered being “a little scared, a little timid” at his first graduation weekend at Fishburne Military School as an eighth-grader. “Seeing the valedictorian, it had a high place in my mind,” said McNamara, a day student at the Waynesboro prep school. “Being up there giving the valedictorian speech to a new class of…

Historic recycling: Developer gives old asylum, prison new life as upscale town center

Chris Graham

I’m taking an intern from UVa. on a drive around the Valley one summer day a few years back. We decided to stop for lunch at Wright’s Dairy Rite in Staunton. It seemed the touristy thing to do. “What’s that over there?” he asked, gesturing at the old Western State Hospital complex, then in use…