piantadosi

The Rappahannock County School Board voted Tuesday to dedicate $150,000 in next year’s budget -- and in its budgets for the following nine years -- to paying off whatever debts may be incurred to fix energy and environmental problems at the county’s schools.
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Washington’s long-awaited $4 million sewage-treatment plant quietly went live on April 19. At Monday’s Washington Town Council meeting, Councilman Gary Schwartz reported that the plant received its state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) operations certificate April 16, “and as of today, we have 17 connections in operation,” he said. Those included the new plant’s...
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Hasn’t this been a gorgeous spring? I don’t think I have ever seen the redbud trees in such splendor as they were a few weeks ago. They are always beautiful, especially alongside the dogwoods, but this year they were particularly full and rich with color. And just the other morning, riding out toward Sperryville...
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Since mid-February it’s been my pleasure to serve as Aging Together’s new resource specialist in Rappahannock County and to meet a number of wonderful community-minded people working to make life better for all of the county’s residents: Darcy Canton at the Senior Center; Sharon Pyne of DSS; Linda Dietel at The Link; Hal Hunter...
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Elderly man dies after a minor accident coming down the mountain on U.S. 211, and a county school bus collides with a car on U.S. 522 near Chester Gap.
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In races that were in all cases uncontested — except for one, at the very last minute — not quite three dozen of Washington’s 120 registered voters turned out Tuesday to elect their town leaders for the next four years. Councilman John Fox Sullivan was elected mayor, garnering the most votes of any single...
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What do you get when you cross a Saint Bernard and a Boxer? Well, come over and see me, Jeremy, and you will discover that you get a big, smart, four-footed pal. One that is very bright, trained to an invisible fence; one who has learned all his manners, and properly so. I weigh...
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I’ve been taking it pretty easy this week. After spending the last month getting my firewood for next year, I turned the wrong way the other day and something got twisted in my back, and that requires me to take it slow for a while. But I still have a lot of blessings to...
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With the help of many individuals and organizations, including the Alzheimer’s Association, Aging Together is helping to organize a Rappahannock County caregivers support group that will start meeting regularly in early June. We know there are many people throughout the county who are doing the hard work of caring for a loved one, and...
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The five-year-long project to build a regional jail that Rappahannock County would share with Warren and Shenandoah counties, all but killed by General Assembly budget cuts last month, got a boost last week from Gov. Bob McDonnell. McDonnell’s amendments to the proposed budget — amendments state legislators were scheduled to vote on this week...
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Ben Mason hears voices. The lifelong musician came to Rappahannock County a decade ago in part because . . . well, if you’ve been here for any amount of time you already know this, really: They’re louder here. Though the Castleton singer-songwriter is the first to admit to being a little crazy — in...
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The Rappahannock County school board signed up a new superintendent Tuesday. He’ll have plenty to do when he starts July 1, but it looks as if his predecessor, through June 30, will be just as busy. At the start of the board’s monthly meeting Tuesday night at the high school, former Appomattox County superintendent...
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It’s almost online, it’s mostly underground — and now it’s also under budget. As Washington Town Council members heard at their regular monthly meeting Monday night at Town Hall, the town’s $4 million sewer system will likely cost more like $3.7 million, according to current construction estimates as the project winds down. Council member...
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When a customer asked Bubby Settle the other day what all the noise and dust were about at his landmark Flint Hill service station, dealership, deli and grocery, he quipped: “I’m spending my children’s inheritance.” In truth, Settle is replacing the more than 20-year-old fuel tanks and fuel pumps with state-of-the-art versions, in part...
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Tracey Sutphin says it all started with something no one could’ve imagined back when she and the rest of the RCHS Class of 1987 were getting ready to graduate. That would be Facebook. “A bunch of folks from my class started getting together and talking on Facebook, last year sometime, and it kinda grew,”...
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A former Appomattox County schools superintendent who credits the Air Force with giving him a firm grounding in management skills has been chosen by the Rappahannock County Board of Education to be the school system’s next superintendent. “Over the past few months, the Board has been involved in many hours of interviews, selection and...
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Just a brief story about a restaurant not closing in Rappahannock County: Not only is Washington’s Blue Rock Inn shooting for an April 15 reopening — after bankruptcy, new ownership and nearly a year of renovation — but its new owners have hired award-winning chef Gerard Pangaud to get the place started. “Chef Gerard...
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The driver of the pickup truck in which 16-year-old Logan McKiernan was fatally injured last fall has been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, reckless driving and four other driving- or drinking-related charges. Commonwealth’s Attorney Peter Luke this week filed the charges against Charles Edward Climo, 18, of Sperryville, in Rappahannock County...
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RCHS athletic director to be replaced; a day of Food Pantry fund-raising; Theatre sees Redd -- jazzmen Chuck and Robert.
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Bach to the Theatre . . . To celebrate the 325th anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach, consider heading to the Theatre at Washington this Sunday for another in its series of Smithsonian at Little Washington events: Harpsichordist Kenneth Slowik will play Bach’s monumental “Goldberg Variations.” The program, which starts at 3...
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Historically, Rappahannock County has gotten a smaller cut of state school funding than all but a half-dozen other counties in the commonwealth. For precisely that reason, however, the county is apparently better off in this historically tight state budget cycle than almost every neighboring jurisdiction. “The good news is, our $250,000 seems to have...
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A public hearing on Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) plans to replace one of the busiest bridges in the county is scheduled for Wednesday, March 24 at Rappahannock County High School. Like a separate planned bridge project on Rt. 729 at Battle Run (for which a VDOT public hearing will most likely be held...
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The Rappahannock County school board has apparently settled on a final candidate to replace retiring Superintendent Robert Chappell, but isn’t saying who it is. “We can’t,” said Chairman J. Wesley Mills, asked if he could identify the candidate after Tuesday’s monthly Board of Education meeting at the high school. “We are still negotiating.” Pressed...
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Gentlemen (and ladies), start your plumbers. If this week’s initial state-required five-day test goes well, and it doesn’t seriously snow or flood in the interim, the Town of Washington’s $4 million wastewater collection and treatment system could be up and running by early April. That was the news from the Washington Town Council’s regular...
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A Rappahannock Circuit Court grand jury voted to indict a number of defendants this week on various drug-related, assault and firearms charges. Also on Monday, Circuit Court Judge Herman A. Whisenant Jr. sentenced — among others — two of three persons found guilty of breaking and entering Hackley’s Store in Amissville last May. Dennis...
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The county’s Virginia Cooperative Extension office and associated 4H programs may have to leave town — though they won’t if the county and Rappahannock’s state delegate have their way in the coming weeks of Richmond-based budget wrangling and the local wangling that follows. The closure of eight county Extension offices and “restructuring” of another...
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Based on filings at Rappahannock County’s Board of Elections office this week, the slate for the Town of Washington’s May 4 election looks like this: Mayor John Sullivan, currently a member of the Town Council, is running unopposed. “I plan to get out and speak to every person in town, residents and businesses, and...
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By the time its long-awaited $4 million wastewater treatment plant and sewer system is operating for a good three or four months this summer, the town of Washington will apparently have something else new to test out. That would be a mayor. At Tuesday night’s Washington Town Council meeting at the Town Hall —...
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The people, livestock and roads of Rappahannock County — blanketed in 19 to 26 inches of wet, heavy snow over the weekend in a once-in-a-century storm — appeared to have made it through a second storm Wednesday without major incident or loss of life. Which is not to say it was easy. And which...
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By Beverly Hunter and Roger Piantadosi The idea that we all share a watershed — but that each farmer and landowner has to overcome unique hurdles to helping keep clean the water running through his or her part of it — came across clearly at a workshop sponsored by local environmental and soil conservation...
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In the dead of winter, when hardly anyone goes anywhere, Rappahannock County is working hard to make sure that, come spring, everyone shows up here. The Board of Supervisors Monday voted to create a Tourism Advisory Group (TAG) to help the county create and run a visitor center – which the group’s predecessor, the...
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An extended and extraordinary exchange among supervisors over the county’s “budget policy” at Monday’s Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting provided a public indication that the coming two months of budget season will not be particularly easy this year. “I’ve been trying to stay out of this,” said Board Chairman Roger Welch of Wakefield District...
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A jury on Wednesday returned a not-guilty verdict in the Rappahannock Circuit Court trial of Allen Lewis, a sometime Rappahannock resident accused last April of raping a woman friend while driving her home. This allegedly occurred after spending an evening drinking and smoking crack cocaine with her and others. NOTE: As originally published, this...
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The volunteers and staff who look after the Rappahannock Historical Society’s collection of artifacts, photos and documents will be getting some free expert advice. The advice is part of a statewide project, funded by a grant by the Institute of Museum of Library Services, to help improve the care of collections held by small...
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As relief efforts continue around the world in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, organizations and businesses in Rappahannock are doing their share – and at least one longtime Rappahannock resident who was in Port au Prince for the quake has sent an extraordinary email dispatch to friends. “Many people have lost their lives...
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The Washington Town council authorizes Mayor Eugene Leggett to negotiate the terms of a nearly half-million-dollar Water Quality Improvement Fund grant from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
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You will have heard by now that this newspaper is under new ownership, and that the new owners, along with the publisher and editor, are all local, Rappahannock-based folks. This is a good thing. But the more important reality is that it’s you, our readers, who are the local folks who’ll make the most...
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Rae’s in Sperryville will be closing at the end of the month, as Thornton River Grille and the Corner Store take on former ECow owner Terri Lehman as a catering partner.
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The Rappahannock County Board of Education, meeting for the first time in 2010 Tuesday at the high school, unanimously reelected Wes Mills as its chairman, and faces a year of tough challenges.
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A gasoline fire caused by a static spark is contained by quick-thinking customers at Washington's Quicke Mart.
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