The New Dominion – April 2009 edition

The New Dominion – April 2009 issue

Two shades of green: The green economy in the Valley proving profitable for local business

Story by Chris Graham

There’s an easier way to run a restaurant, but Ian Boden wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t doing it the way he’s doing it.

“It’s a lot of work, and logistically it’s a pain in the neck. But it’s completely worth it,” said Boden, a chef and owner of Staunton Grocery, which uses local produce and meats and dairy products as the core of its menu offerings. Trained in New York and New England, Boden plunked down in Downtown Staunton two years ago with the idea of doing something different in the local restaurant business. “I spent my first three months in Staunton meeting farmers,” said Boden, who learned the value of having good relations with local producers in his time in New York, where the local food movement has been a fixture for years. “That’s all I did. I went to their farms and hung out with them, ate dinner with them, and they eventually introduced me to more farmers. It’s an ongoing thing. I got products in today from a new farmer for the first time. It never ends, and hopefully it never will end,” Boden said. Read more

Building green, saving green: Market moving to incorporate energy-efficient, ecofriendly designs

 

Story by Chris Graham

What makes the house at 124 Forever Court, Waynesboro, any different than the house beside it or the one across the street? That question threw Dwayne Caricofe for a loop as he put the 1,500-square-foot ecofriendly-designed home on the market last year.

“You need to get people in, let them see what they can see, and explain it to them,” said Caricofe, a Realtor at Kline and Co. Realty, which got a sale on the house built by EarthCraft Builder member R. Uhler Construction in Staunton, and in relatively short order in today’s tough market, within 90 days of putting a sign out in the front yard.

“If you look at us from the street, you probably don’t have any clue that this house is any different than any other house. Education is so important, and that’s the dilemma we had in marketing this house. We knew the benefits, but we had to figure out a way to get that across in the marketing. You look at this house and the house across the street, why is this home better? Well, you’re going to get a 30 percent savings right off the bat on your utility bills,” Caricofe said.

And who isn’t into saving money in this day and age, right? That’s the selling point for green homes. The catch, assumed, anyway, is that you pay more up front to be able to achieve those savings. It’s that catch that has kept the green building movement in its nascent stages going on 30 years now. Read more

And then there were two: Marrow, Noel set to challenge Landes in 25th

  

Story by Chris Graham

Steve Landes hasn’t had a Democratic Party opponent since his first run for the 25th District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates since 1995. He’ll have a Democratic opponent this fall, though.

“It’s an uphill battle here. We have a lot of entrenched thought and belief systems here. But times have changed. Not only since 9/11, but also since this economic crisis. And it really is time to start rethinking the way we’re electing our public officials. Are they truly working for you? Are they truly doing what needs to be done to take care of their communities? I think not, and that’s a big reason as to why I’m running,” said Greg Marrow, 44, of McGaheysville, an optometrist and U.S. Navy veteran who has thrown his hat into the ring for the Democratic Party nomination.

“I have been here now for over 16 years and have seen a lot of changes over this time. Businesses closing, hundreds of people out of work, subdivisions going up. Most importantly where we are not being represented in this area. That is why I decided to run,” said Jim Noel, 42, of Mount Sidney, a facility planner with Perdue Farms in Bridgewater who will be challenging Marrow in the race for the Democratic nomination, which will be decided in a June 9 primary. Read more

Video | Meet Greg Marrow

  

25th District Democratic Party nomination candidate Greg Marrow sits down with New Dominion editor Chris Graham for a wide-ranging one-on-one interview. Graham and Marrow, 44, of McGaheysville, talk economic development, community involvement and the uphill battle that the eventual Democratic nominee will face in the 25th. Length: 7:34. Read more

Who wants to be a Millionaire?

  

Story by Chris Graham

I’m reading this book, The Millionaires: A Novel of the New South, by Inman Majors, and I’m thinking, Swear to God, this is Waynesboro politics in print.

Majors, a James Madison University professor, does live in Waynesboro, but after talking with him I realized I’m the only one who sees any Waynesboro in his book, a fictional account of two brothers in late 1970s Tennessee who run a gubernatorial campaign and lead the effort to land the World’s Fair in Knoxville.

Majors’ childhood experiences in Knoxville and Nashville as the son of a political lobbyist played a formative role in the development of the storyline. “When I was a kid, my dad would take me out of school for a couple of days – we were living in Knoxville then – and he’d bring me down to the state capital in Nashville and just let me hang out with him,” said Majors, who has “been around politicians my whole life,” and who was also around football a good bit in his formative years – his father and three of his uncles played major-college football, and one of the uncles is Johnny Majors, who won a national championship at Pitt before becoming the coach at Tennessee. Read more

Excerpt | The Millionaires

  

From the book by Inman Majors

To be honest, said Teague, it’s the other things on your plate that I’m most interested in. But I can help with this election. Like you said, Montgomery would have beat Hart in ‘74 if he’d listened to me.

About the Whistle-Stop Tour?

But not the cap or overalls, remember.

Invective en masse regarding the Republican engineer.

So why didn’t Montgomery keep you on? said the man called Johnny Boy. Read more

Living history: Recreating the Battle of Waynesboro

  

Story by Chris Graham

You want to be a re-enactor, spend a weekend with Fifth Virginia, Company L, out of West Augusta, where the guys take it to the extreme by living and eating like Civil War soldiers for two days.

“You come to the realization that they were some hearty people in those days. If they lived to adulthood, survived all those childhood diseases, they could survive off hard tack and soft pork for four years. Probably longer than that. We’re soft as a society today. We’d probably die from heart disease at 20,” said Bruce Houle of Staunton, who has been on the re-enactment scene for 23 years now. Read more

Video | The Battle of Waynesboro

  

The Battle of Waynesboro – March 2, 1865. It was a month before Appomattox, and what happened here had something to do with what happened there at the formal end of the Civil War. New Dominion editor Chris Graham explores the Battle of Waynesboro by telling the stories of those who help preserve the living history. Length: 8:40.  Read more

Photo Gallery | The Battle of Waynesboro

Photos from Waynesboro-based photographer Mark Miller from the Battle of Waynesboro commemoration.

Read more

New Dominion honored by press association

 

The New Dominion Magazine won three awards for journalistic excellence in its first year of eligibility in the prestigious Virginia Press Association News Contest. The awards were announced March 21 at the Association’s annual conference in Norfolk. Read more

Turning the South River Green

  

Column by Beau Beasley

Like many rivers across the country, the South River, a relatively small waterway that runs though much of Augusta County and through the heart of the city of Waynesboro, has had its ups and downs.

The river has been widened in some places to help prevent flooding, which has strained some of the river’s inhabitants because this widening removed structures that fish and other creatures used as shelter. The river has also been dammed in a few places, and this has caused the wamer to have an unnatural flow, and subsequently raised the temperature of the water, thus further stressing the fish. Perhaps the biggest threat to the river came in the mid-’70s when it was discovered that mercury had entered the river. Like most waterways near developing cities, the South River was used by industry where water was needed for processing and or support in making commercial products. At the worst of times, when a corduroy plant was located near the river, you could actually determine what color pants the factory was making by watching the color of the river change colors. One local even relayed to me a story passed down from his father, of how the river actually caught fire one day.

In the summer of 1999, a new hand was dealt to the South River from the business community, but this one was quite different than times past. A little-known nonprofit group called Waynesboro Downtown Development Inc. had the task of promoting businesses near the city’s center. One day while brainstorming ideas about how to promote the area as a tourist destination, an idea was proposed to create a fly fishing festival. It was logical that people would be willing to travel to Waynesboro for such an event, given the city is easily accessed off of Interstate 64 and the South River provided a perfect venue. Read more

Oak Grove ready for ‘09

Story by Chris Graham

Forty-five bucks for a season of theater with the beauty of the Shenandoah Valley as part of the tableau.
“We’re the best deal in town,” said Doug Roller, who has been involved with productions at Oak Grove Theater north of Staunton for 44 years.

The 2009 season, the 55th at Oak Grove, which was founded in 1954 by local theater stalwarts Fletcher and Margaret Collins, begins May 28-June 3 with a production of Neil Simon’s God’s Favorite. Also on the schedule for ‘09 is The Miss Firecracker Contest June 18-June 24, The Pajama Game July 9-July 15, Ordinary People July 30-Aug. 5, and Go Back for Murder Aug. 20-26. Read more