The New Dominion - May 2009 edition

The New Dominion - May 2009 issue

The sun’ll come out tomorrow: Local attractions holding steady despite doom and gloom, laying groundwork for brighter future

It’s not exactly an ideal time to be opening, say, a new exhibit at the ol’ museum, what with the economy being what it is and all. But you can’t always account for what shape the economy is going to be in when planning has to begin several years out. Read more

Hart ready to make noise in 26th

Story by Chris Graham

Lowell Fulk was Al Weed. Gene Hart wants to be Tom Perriello.

“Lowell Fulk’s runs in 2003 and 2005 laid the foundation for what we can do this year. We couldn’t be successful if Lowell hadn’t run and lost in 2003 and 2005,” said Hart, 46, a Harrisonburg attorney and presumptive Democratic Party nominee in the 26th House District who will challenge Republican incumbent Matt Lohr in November.

Fulk is the chair of the Rockingham County Democratic Committee who challenged long-time State Del. Glenn Weatherholtz in ‘03 and then Lohr in ‘05 and came thisclose both times to turning the seat representing a portion of the county and the entirety of the city of Harrisonburg blue. “Lowell reinvigorated the Democratic Party in Harrisonburg and Rockingham, and those races and those losses were necessary for us to get to where we are now,” said Hart, like Fulk a centrist Democrat whose campaign is focused in ‘09 on crafting solutions on issues like education and particularly transportation that have been held up by the partisan gridlock in Richmond the past several years. Read more

Video Extra | Gene Hart on unemployment insurance

26th House District Democratic Party nominee Gene Hart speaks Thursday, April 23, 2009, at a Results, Not Roadblocks rally addressing the vote of House Republicans to block the receipt of federal stimulus monies for unemployment benefits at the Harrisonburg Virginia Employment Commission office. Read more

Gotta know the warning signs

Story by Chris Graham

The sensation was like “pouring warm water starting from the top of my head all the way down to my toes on the left side.” And it scared Chris DeWald, but not the doctor who treated him initially.

“They said, Oh, you must be having a migraine headache, and sent me home, and didn’t do any tests,” said DeWald, who was about to turn 50, had just been nominated for a regional award for his work in the Public Works Department in the city of Staunton, and whose life was about to change forever.

DeWald had had a stroke that day, it would be discovered, when he landed back in the hospital after collapsing at home following a second stroke three days later. That was in May 2006. That he’s here three years later is a miracle. “They told me I should have died,” DeWald said, counting himself among the lucky ones, along with Karen Bess of Fishersville, who is four years into her post-stroke new life. Her experience was similar in some ways to that of DeWald - she suffered a series of four strokes that she said she wrote off at first as being headaches caused by stress from a move and then had written off like DeWald by a doctor who misdiagnosed what was happening. Read more

Online Extra | Five Warning Signs of Stroke

Compiled by Chris Graham

Do you know what the Five Warning Signs of Stroke are?

Walk … Is Their Balance Off?

Talk … Is Their Sleep Slurred or Face Droopy?

Reach … Is One Side Weak or Numb?

See … Is Their Vision All or Partially Lost?

Feel … Is Their Headache Severe? Read more

Summer catch

Story by Chris Graham

Pete VandenBout admits to being a “little nervous” when he showed up to play baseball in Waynesboro a couple of years ago, not so much because of the baseball, but because he didn’t know the first thing about the family that was going to put him up for the summer.

“Right off the bat, we had a big barbecue cookout the first day everyone got there, and I could tell right when I met them that they were really nice people, and everything was probably going to be just fine,” said VandenBout, now a senior at West Virginia Tech, who ended up coming back for a second season with the Waynesboro Generals, and the McDevitts, in 2008. Read more

Online Extra | See the Generals

Compiled by Chris Graham

Here it is - your complete 2009 Waynesboro Generals home schedule. Read more

‘I never really gave up’

Story by Chris Graham

I could imagine L.D. Cox as the gregarious 19-year-old who helped deliver the first atomic bomb across the Pacific. “Don’t shoot!” he said in mock surrender as he made his way across the drill field at Fishburne Military School on a sunny late-March afternoon, passing a cannon that was going to be fired a little later in honor of Cox and fellow crewmembers from the USS Indianapolis.

Nine hundred from the 1,196-man crew lost their lives in a July 1945 torpedo attack on the ship that had just delivered the A-bomb used to level Hiroshima. Sixty-four years later, a handful of those pulled out of the water after the controversial five-day delay between the sinking and their sighting still get together regularly to catch up with men closer than brothers and share their stories. Read more

Video Extra | A Story of Survival: The USS Indianapolis

Survivors from the USS Indianapolis and two of their rescuers were in the Shenandoah Valley this week to talk about the sinking of the Indianapolis and the aftermath of the tragedy that took nearly 900 lives just before the end of hostilities in World War II. AFP editor Chris Graham reporting. Length: 10:54. Read more

Seller beware: It’s a buyer’s market, not a seller’s, and not a builder’s

Story by Chris Graham

Elizabeth Barnes is “wiped out.”

“We priced it right, too,” said Barnes, talking about her 325 Lee Drive, Waynesboro, home, that she put on the market in July 2008 at a list price of $275,000, $40,000 below what she was going to list it at a year earlier when she had flirted with the idea of moving then. Read more

Cash flow: Local bank, credit unions doing well in spite of financial crisis

Story by Chris Graham

I’m reading an article in Time magazine a few weeks back, and there’s a report on how a few new local community banks seem to be doing well in spite of what would seem to be the conventional wisdom on banks and business across the board.

It occurs to me that there’s a new local community bank in the Greater Augusta market, Frontier Community Bank, which opened its first and to date sole branch in Waynesboro on Lew Dewitt Boulevard in February 2008. Read more

Three bowls of soup: Local restaurants using local ingredients affect communities in unforeseen ways

Story by Theresa Curry

Will Richey began to notice a difference in the Charlottesville Farmers Market in the late ’90s. Besides the usual Charlottesville crowd seeking coffee and muffins or a week’s worth of groceries, he started running into Charlottesville’s best chefs. “I noticed the chefs – and of course sous chefs and other people connected with the city’s restaurant business – and I thought it was great,” he said. Read more

The old way of doing food

Story by Chris Graham 

It’s not quite perfect - somebody still has to drive the food to the pickup points in Lexington and Staunton each week, and most likely you’re going to drive there to get it and take it back home.

Aside from that almost infinitesimal carbon footprint, though, the Beyond Organic vegetables available through the community supported agriculture program at Cherry Ridge Farm are fresh-picked (as of the day each week the baskets are dropped off at Woods Creek Cafe in Lexington and Cranberry’s in Staunton), and oh, so good to eat. Read more

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