When I was in high school, I briefly dated a girl who went to Chatham Hall, just north of Danville near the North Carolina line. That part of Virginia is known as Southside, and it always felt like a foreign country. Except for its rural roots, it has very little in common with Rappahannock...
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Last Friday marked the first of what we hope will be many open-to-the-public editorial meetings. Most of the “citizen journalists” and interested community members attending said they thought the newspaper was doing a pretty good job but offered some useful suggestions about how it could do even better. Among the questions posed was: “What...
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Two years ago, this newspaper’s longtime publisher, the late Arthur “Nick” Arundel, who loved the Rappahannock News because he loved Rappahannock County, decided it was time to sell. At about the same time, he sold another rural, county-seat-based paper, the Clarke Courier in Berryville. Today, the Courier no longer exists, but the Rappahannock News...
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No major engagements in the Civil War, the sesquicentennial anniversary of which is now being celebrated, took place here in Rappahannock County. But in what is today’s not-so-civil conflict in Big Washington, our very own congressional representative is leading the charge. Rappahannock residents don’t know whether to be proud, frustrated, embarrassed or outraged about...
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The July 21-24 Sesquicentennial of the First Battle of Manassas makes me feel old enough to be a Civil War veteran. In a way, I am.
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“Liberty means responsibility. That’s why most men dread it.”
George Bernard Shaw’s famous quip came to mind this Fourth of July weekend as our elected representatives in Big Washington struggled to become fiscally responsible. Or at least pretended and postured that they were struggling.
Here in Little Washington and environs, our patriotism somehow seems more...
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From all accounts, the Earth Day litter cleanup, sponsored by the local Democratic Committee, was a great success (see Jed Duvall’s letter this week). Apparently there is now much less litter on Route 211. But is that a good thing? The question should be asked. For some of us, the colorful food packaging and...
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This headline poses a hard question. It is a question common to just about all high schools across the nation, but no one in a position of authority at our own local high school wants to give a good answer. Why?
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Oh, how he longed to be outside landscaping and plotting his garden, and thus to be “relieved from the drudgery of the pen.” Substitute “laptop” or “word processor” for “the pen” -- and the springtime sentiments of our first President, George Washington, ring as poignantly true today as two centuries ago.
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Growing up in neighboring Fauquier County, I always knew when spring had finally sprung. The awareness lay not in the sweet scents and soft pastels of dogwoods and shad blossoms -- but in the bright colors and pungent smells of Saturdays at the races.
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Rappahannock residents can only hope that our new (after redistricting) congressman will be as cognizant of our wants and needs as Eric Cantor has been.
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Assumptions, beliefs, "confirmation bias" and how a 13-year-old can sometimes teach a grown-up a thing or two.
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With the budget battle raging in Big Washington, just about everyone I know in Rappahannock — Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative — agrees that it is irresponsible to keep running huge federal deficits, as we have for the last 10 years. To keep living on borrowed money, we’re essentially robbing our children and...
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Compared to the more civilized and manicured venues of Fauquier and Loudoun counties, horseback riding in Rappahannock County, and especially foxhunting, is a wild and woolly affair, like a frontier hunt. When eulogizing Arthur W. “Nick” Arundel at last Friday’s funeral service at Trinity Episcopal Church in Upperville, John Warner — retired senator, fellow...
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In his final column as The Washington Post ombudsman, Andrew Alexander asked the question: Will The Post’s “reputation for journalistic excellence . . . endure?” That Alexander happens to be a part-time resident of Rappahannock County only makes his lament more poignant, for we here at our own, relatively teeny-tiny, newspaper operation face many...
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The wheels of “progress” are now in motion at Clevenger’s Corner, just across the border in Culpeper County, and there is precious little that we in Rappahannock County can do to affect the direction or speed of such progress. Or maybe there is? In a savvy gesture of good will and smart politics, Jim...
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In the interests of full disclosure and transparency, it should be said that there was discussion and debate here at the newspaper some months ago about whether we should even have a “Citizen of the Year” award this year — even though it was a tradition going back more than 30 years to 1978....
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Desperately clinging to yesteryear’s outmoded cell phone tower technology while not taking advantage of the latest voice-data transmission science afforded in the extraordinary innovations of geostatic satellite technology is a strange place from which to call someone else a Luddite. Cell phone towers were developed way back in the dawn of wireless communications. Years...
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Rappahannock County government offices and the local bank were scheduled to be closed Thursday, Nov. 11, in observance of Veterans Day. So was the U.S. Postal Service. Thus newspaper subscribers who rely on the mail for delivery of the Rappahannock News have to wait an extra day. (How annoying is that!) Very few other...
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The hope is that headline — with the implication that we were wrong! — makes everybody happy. But if everyone’s mad at us, we must be doing something right. There’s some comfort in that. Otherwise, the last couple of weeks have been anything but comfortable here at the Rappahannock News. It all started with...
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As the sesquicentennial of the Civil War approaches, I find myself revisiting great American historians, most recently Avery Odelle Craven. The Organization of American Historians annually awards a prize in his name to the best original work on the Civil War and Reconstruction: the Avery O. Craven Prize. Yet Craven is perhaps best known...
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If anyone keeps track of such things, Rappahannock County must surely take top prize, on a per-capita basis, for the number of its homegrown nonprofits. This is testimony to an active citizenry motivated and energized by good causes. One of the very first of these nonprofits was the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection (RLEP),...
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Another newspaper in the county launched this month. Or, rather, re-launched after a summer hiatus. It’s called “Rapp-Up.” Why should we at the Rappahannock News be giving free publicity to a potential competitor? Well, for starters, Rapp-Up is a monthly, not a weekly. More important, it’s Rappahannock County High School’s student newspaper, and so...
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Even in this era of cyberspace travel, it’s still impossible for one physical body to be in two places at the same time, as my family and I discovered this past weekend. So much was happening right here in Rappahannock — the Farm Tour, the start of the Castleton fall concert series, the Rappahannock...
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For any grownups needing a refresher course in the important things in life, a visit to Rappahannock County High School (RCHS) football practice is highly recommended. The team practices every weekday afternoon, for three hours, rain or shine: No matter that the temperature is 90-plus degrees, as it frequently has been. And no matter...
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Sunday, after midnight but before dawn, the rain came. Finally. Not nearly enough, of course, but certainly better than nothing. Answered prayers. Or — as Rappahannock County’s pre-European-contact inhabitants might have had it centuries earlier — the natural, inevitable outcome of ritualized, communal ceremonies, like perhaps a rain dance. And, indeed, on Saturday evening,...
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One of the most gratifying experiences in the eight months since assuming responsibility of publishing the Rappahannock News has been the creation of the newspaper’s Web site: www.rappnews.com. The creator is the paper’s editor, Roger Piantadosi, together with Jan Clatterbuck, editorial assistant and office manager. The community’s reaction has been almost unanimously positive. Especially...
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“He loved the land and everything that came from it,” says Washington, Va. attorney Doug Baumgardner of his longtime friend, Ray Cannon, who passed away this week at the age of 93. There can be no greater tribute for a Rappahannock County native son. For places like Rappahannock to retain their good character and...
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Money isn’t everything. That’s easy to say for those of us still standing at the tail end (one hopes!) of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. So to rephrase the sentiment: Who here would want to live in Loudoun County? Fairfax? Prince William? That’s what I thought . . . . Very...
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In an editorial a couple of weeks ago it was suggested that a proposed widening of U.S. 211 to six lanes between Warrenton and Clevenger’s Corner was like a dagger pointed into the heart of Rappahannock County. Many readers became justly alarmed about this proposed road widening. Since, as the editorial mentioned, the proposal...
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It seems an odd time of year to encourage readers to vote, but this is not politics as usual. This is business. For most readers are now members of the Rappahannock Electric Cooperative (REC). As in effect shareholders, you are entitled to elect your own board of directors. People like to complain. And one...
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The heat is on. And the precipitation is not. That’s the story now and here in Rappahannock County. Things could be worse. Things can always be worse, of course: there’s consolation, if not rainfall, in that. Russia, for instance, is experiencing its worst drought in at least half a century. That country’s Hydrometeorological Center...
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Two decisions in the coming days, seemingly minor in the larger scheme of things, will actually reveal what kind of world we wish to bequeath to our children and grandchildren. One decision will be made at the August 2 Rappahannock Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting; the other, at the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT)...
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During the course of its investigation into the current Gulf of Mexico oil spill, The Associated Press was given information from the then-office of Mineral Management Services that was not making a lot of sense. As millions of gallons of crude spewed into the gulf waters and the oversight by MMS officials on BP’s...
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Of all the recent Rappahannock News stories to stir reader reaction, none has surpassed the verdict in the trial of a teenage driver whose schoolmate was killed in a vehicular crash last October. In a case like this, no matter the outcome, there will always be those who say injustice has prevailed. So rather...
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For those of us who have experienced both the national fireworks display on Big Washington’s mall and the Fourth of July celebration here in Rappahannock County on Thornton Hill Farm, there is no comparison. One is definitely bigger. The other is better. Here we actually know the people putting on the event. And of...
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There's a fine line nowadays between gossip and news. A very fine line. The newest hotshot political journalists in Big Washington not only acknowledge but also even seem to brag that they'll “put a story out there” just to get reactions, which in turn become a story in themselves: “Congressman so-and-so responded to...
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The kingfishers that flit along the Thornton, Hazel and other tributaries of the upper Rappahannock are not brown pelicans. The river mussels are mere distant cousins (multiple times removed) from saltwater oysters. And freshwater crayfish only seem like baby shrimp. And yet … and yet …. Sometimes it feels as though, down deep in...
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To those graduating from not only Rappahannock County High School but also Wakefield, other private schools, and homeschooling . . . and, of course, college graduates who still call Rappahannock County home. Congratulations! You make Rappahannock County proud. And we hope you’ll always be proud of your Rappahannock roots. That pride, like most finely...
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The Rappahannock Voice was started as an experiment in local online journalism in the fall of 2006. It has served the community with local news and commentary for nearly four years. Thanks to those of you who tuned in. At the time I launched RappVoice, I did not believe that the community was adequately...
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