Clarification | Factory Antique Mall is alive and well

A concern has been raised that the lead story in the July issue of The New Dominion Magazine (”Out of business: What felled NewBiz Virginia?“) might lead readers to form the impression that the Factory Antique Mall in Verona has closed.

To clarify, in fact the Factory Antique Mall, which opened for business in 1996, is alive and well. NewBiz Virginia, a business incubator funded in part by local governments in Augusta County, Staunton and Waynesboro, and operated out of a location where the Factory Antique Mall is also a tenant, closed in 2006.

We apologize for any confusion on that point that might have resulted from reading the story in the print magazine or online. Read more

The New Dominion - July 2009 edition

Out of Biz: What felled NewBiz Virginia?

Story by Chris Graham

It was the 1990s. The dotcom boom had everybody convinced that this new thing they were calling the New Economy was going to make everybody on the right side of the curve filthy rich.

The trick was figuring out how one could participate in the New Economy. Not even people who were profiting from it knew exactly what the New Economy was, other than it had something to do with technology. Read more

Under fire: A rough final year for Landes, NewBiz board

Story by Chris Graham

A lot went wrong with NewBiz Virginia, perhaps, as some of its former leaders have suggested, dating to the very start of the effort to try to get the publicly-funded business incubator off the ground, given the difficulty in getting such enterprises up and running toward success in the long term. Read more

Young, younger, youngest

Story by Chris Graham

Tim Williams is young for a city mayor at 43. But Williams, entering his second year as mayor of Waynesboro, has nine years of experience in city government under his belt dating back to his term on the Waynesboro School Board.

That makes him the grizzled veteran of the young mayors trio in the Charlottesville-Greater Augusta-Harrisonburg area.

“And that experience can be a big help,” said Williams, who was re-elected to Waynesboro City Council last year and was sworn in as the new mayor in the River City on July 1, 2008. 

Read more

The new man in charge at Blue U.

Story by Chris Graham

The world has turned over several times at least since John Downey first stepped foot on campus at Blue Ridge Community College in 1992. Few had heard of the Internet by then, for example. And the handful of us who had cell phones had to leave them in their cars, except for the occasional guy who carried around a device as big as your average brick.  Read more

The morning paper revisited

Story by Chris Graham

“We’ve created a very strange situation for ourselves,” News Virginian editor and general manager Lee Wolverton said of the ongoing handwringing among us media moguls about what we need to do to get our industry back on track after a sustained period of losing print readers used to paying for the news to the Internet where people have come to expect information to be readily available for free. 

“It’s really the equivalent of saying to somebody, You can drive to Burger King and pay for your sandwich, or we can bring it to your door and give it to you for free. And then the funny thing about our industry is, we’re all mystified as to why that isn’t working,” Wolverton said. Read more

Hard days at the Mall: Can Staunton Mall endure another near-death experience?

Story by Chris Graham

You want to say the Staunton Mall is dying, and it’s not like you’re seeing something that isn’t there. Steve & Barry’s was a coup for the Staunton Mall when it set up shop there a few years ago, so it has to be considered a huge loss now that it closed up its Mall location as part of its bankruptcy. And then there’s the space across from the old Steve & Barry’s space. Books-A-Million has left the building to focus on its new Waynesboro Town Center store.

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Can-do: Canning, freezing all the rage again

Story by Theresa Curry

No one’s buying cars or new homes, but families everywhere are investing in jars, lids and giant pots to preserve the fruits of Virginia’s harvest and save a few dollars in the process.

According to Nielsen figures released last fall, canning and freezing supplies were posting unit sales growth of 14 percent, and the trend has gained more steam as the first vegetables and fruits ripen. Jarden Home Brands, owner of the popular Ball line of home canning products, had already seen a 30 percent increase in sales of jars and lids in early June, with the main harvest season still weeks away. 

Preserving food in glass and freezer jars is not exactly a new trend. Families from Waynesboro to Winchester are using the same Ball and Mason jars their grandmothers used, replacing only the vacuum lids each year to make a perfect seal. Others, just beginning, are investing in brand-new pint, half-pint and quart jars in the growing numbers that drive the sales increases noted nationally. At the Waynesboro Kroger, non-foods manager Jody Coiner reports a steady increase in the sale of canning jars and lids; and out in Stuarts Draft, Gary Eavers is expanding The Cheese Shop’s line of canning and pickling supplies to meet the growing demand.  Read more

All that jazz: Rich scene for local jazz fans

Story by Chris Graham

That the jazz industry is struggling is a perverse paradox for local jazz fans.

“If you draw a 50-mile circle around Staunton, within that 50-mile circle there are some tremendous jazz guys that are way underemployed, and so I can get really good players for not a whole lot of money,” said Lew Morrison, a local jazz musician and one of the founders of the ongoing Jazz in the Park concert series, which dates to 1988 and is getting under way again for the 2009 season on Thursday, July 9, with a concert at Gypsy Hill Park in Staunton featuring the Young Rascals Jazz Project. 

And so it is that we get to hear jazz players who shuttle back and forth to New York doing what they can to keep busy in between their NYC gigs here in the Valley and Central Virginia. The Charlottesville jazz scene is particularly hoppin’ in that respect. A benefit for the Artisans Center of Virginia in June brought out some of the local all-stars, including Hod O’Brien, a jazz legend dating back to what he did on the piano at the height of the 1950s bebop scene who keeps his fingers limber as part of a jazz-piano duo named 2×88 that he formed earlier this year with Jim Wray.  Read more

Righteous selves: Band mixes reggae, other musical stylings in ‘diverse’ sound

Story by Chris Graham 

Chris Woodson likes to “tell stories.” Which is why he’s a fan of, of all things, country music.

“I like country music because you can tell stories. Every song is a story. Some guy, a regular Joe like you or I, wrote the song in his hometown, and then some big guy sings it. But it was written in a hometown by somebody like me or you dealing with everyday problems,” said Woodson, who is not a country artist, actually, but instead is solidly in reggae, not that genre matters. 

I say that because Woodson, the lead in the Righteous Friendz Band, which released a new self-titled CD last month, is hard to classify using one genre. “The music is really universal, really diverse,” said Woodson, whose meanderings pull from hip hop, rap, reggae, blues, funk and country. Woodson cites among his musical influences Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristoferson and Ray Charles. Read more

My tattooed mission from God

The Final Word column by Chris Graham

Famous last words: “Well, the transaction cleared the debit card, so I guess I can’t change my mind now.”

And that, honestly, was the first time I ever gave the idea that had been hatched in all places sitting in church a couple of months ago a second thought.

I think the missus, for her part, thought I was bluffing when I first informed her of my scheme. “OK. Whatever. It’s your body,” she said, with the tone of a parent not really expecting the rebellious teen to go through with whatever nonsense idea they might spout off at any particular time.  Read more