Nighttime, October 11, 2009. Trooper Tony Mackian drove his State Police cruiser southbound on U.S. 221 near Midway when he saw one of a driver’s worst nightmares: Two vehicles — a pickup truck and a car — side by side as they topped the hill northbound on the two-lane highway. Mackian’s in-car radar clocked the [...]
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In a series of back room deals, Christiansburg’s soon-to-be-former town manager is leaving his $130,000 a year job under a cloud of controversy and will assume the Floyd town manager post that currently pays 43 grand a year. Of course, Floyd’s town government — which operates with all the transparency of BP in an oil-spill [...]
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Yeah, it’s hot out there. Too damn hot. Temperatures flirting with 100, humidity to match along with a skin-frying sun. Chalk up 2010 as the year of extremes in Southwestern Virginia. The winter that dumped layers of snow on the region along with temperatures that prevented any serious melting; a month of booming thunderstorms and [...]
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Rakes Mill Pond on The Blue Ridge Parkway was one of my favorite hangout spots in high school. Rocky Knob overlook was where kids in my era parked and made out but Rakes Mill Pond was where I went to think, reflect and ponder the future. One of my early high school crushes and I [...]
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Like too many towns in Virginia’s economically-ravaged Southside, Danville’s downtown is largely a ghost town, dominated by empty buildings and remnants of past glories. On a recent motorcycle ride to North Carolina, I rode through Danville and stopped to walk around the mostly-deserted downtown. It was a far cry from the Danville I remembered as [...]
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In some communities across the nation, the 4th of July will be quieter this year. The Associated Press reports that at least a couple of dozen cash-strapped local governments have scrapped their annual fireworks displays. In Clayton, North Carolina, budget cuts and layoffs have forced the town of 16,000 to cancel the fireworks show. “It’s [...]
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Ask cops what concerns them most when it comes to crime in Southwestern Virginia and they usually answer in two words: Crystal meth. Methamphetamine use and production is rising to epidemic levels throughout the area and that use leads to other crime as users turn to robbery and break-ins to finance their habits. Floyd County [...]
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