Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
Natalie Moore wasn’t sure what was happening - just that she and the rest of the women’s gymnastics team at James Madison University had been summoned to the Convocation Center for a hastily arranged mandatory meeting.
“My first thought was that somebody had died or something. I didn’t know what was going on,” [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
They don’t even try to call you a moderate anymore.
Nope, if you’re a Republican who believes that the state needs to figure out a way to commit more money to transportation or education or public safety or another public service, your name gets attached to the l-word label pretty quickly and readily.
And [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
A funny thing happened on the way to get-rid-of-Russ Potts-fest that was brewing this spring in the 27th Senate District.
Potts, a four-term incumbent who had fallen into disfavor with some Republicans in the district that stretches from Winchester into Northern Virginia, announced in February that he is not running for re-election.
This wasn’t, [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
The conventional wisdom is that Emmett Hanger is facing not one, but two, challenges from the right because of his 2004 vote on a budget-reform package that resulted in an effective tax increase for Virginians.
So then one might expect to see Hanger, a Republican from Augusta County, making strenuous efforts to cover [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
The Beatles coming to America didn’t get the press that SRI International received when the Silicon Valley founder announced that it was setting up shop in Virginia.
OK, so that might be overstating things a tiny bit - but for economic-development news, anyway, SRI was the biggest thing, to hear people talking about [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
SRI International is setting up shop in the Shenandoah Valley ostensibly to jumpstart a new drug-research initiative.
But drug research is just the tip of the iceberg for SRI and its work here in Virginia - as far as vice president of business development Leonard Polizzotto is concerned, anyway.
“We had lots of debate [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
It’s officially over and done with - Toyota will not be coming to the Shenandoah Valley.
The automaker announced in February that it will be building its eighth North American auto-assembly plant at a 1,700-acre site near Tupelo, Miss. - ending years of speculation in the Old Dominion about its possible interest in [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
You sign a contract with a cell-phone service provider, and their service area doesn’t extend into your cul-de-sac.
“Try getting out of that contract, though,” Dean Welty says, pointing out the obvious - namely, that you’re basically stuck in the contract for the duration.
Welty doesn’t bring this point up to make an issue [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
Shawn Decker had thought that the old wounds from the Waynesboro school system’s decision to expel him from school in the wake of his 1987 HIV diagnosis had long since been healed.
But the response to his telling of what he had been forced to go through at the end of his sixth-grade [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
The inaugural issue of The New Dominion included a picture of “Evan Almighty” star Morgan Freeman sitting on a police motorcycle during a break in filming in downtown Waynesboro.
Turns out that there’s more to the picture than meets the eye - as I learned back at the January launch party that served [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
Cadi can’t bear the feelings of guilt that she feels over her sister’s death - so she decides to seek redemption.
Yes, I know. It’s not at all the kind of thing that you would expect to see coming out of Hollywood - an attempt at a serious exploration of faith on film, [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
Eli Cook has a musical versatility that should serve him well on that magical day when he becomes Central Virginia’s next big thing.
And he can thank his parents for that.
“Growing up, my parents had a big record collection - and they had a lot of blues in it, Muddy Watters, John Lee [...]
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Posted on May 11th, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
Ran Henry remembers how he came to know the legendary football coach Steve Spurrier.
It was back in the days when there was such a thing as the United States Football League - and Spurrier, a former Heisman Trophy winner whose pro career didn’t quite turn out the way people expected that it [...]
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