Rural health care in jeopardy

Rural health care in jeopardy

Federal cuts loom over providers, programs For nonprofits and health care providers in the region — as well as the people receiving rural health services — these are troubling times. The prospect of cutbacks in federal government funding — whether for huge health...

Area organizations move to engage seniors, ward off isolation

Area organizations move to engage seniors, ward off isolation

Growing old and alone in Rappahannock County Nancy Studds is 79 and lives by herself in her Sperryville home. And that gives her pause.  “If you fall and you can’t get up,” she said, “you know nobody’s checking on you.” She zeroed in on a common fear among seniors...

Doers

Pathfinders

Doer’s Profile: Rachel Bynum

Doer’s Profile: Rachel Bynum

Background: Co-owner, Waterpenny Farm in Sperryville; director, Rappahannock Nature Camp; member, Rappahannock County School Board representing the Piedmont District since 2008; member, Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection Education Committee; former vice...

Doer’s Profile: Wayne Dodson

Background: Assistant chief, Amissville Volunteer Fire and Rescue (AVFR); part-time EMT medic, Rappahannock advanced life support program; longtime president and coach, Rappahannock Athletic Association/Rappahannock Culpeper Baseball (RAA/RCB), Amissville; former...

Another ‘mad scramble for funds?’

County budget tensions: property taxes, schools The Rappahannock County budget is composed of thousands of line items, but the annual debate centers on two: property taxes that provide 49% of the revenue, and public schools which account for 52% of the spending.  ...

Rural health care in jeopardy

Federal cuts loom over providers, programs For nonprofits and health care providers in the region — as well as the people receiving rural health services — these are troubling times. The prospect of cutbacks in federal government funding — whether for huge health...

Area organizations move to engage seniors, ward off isolation

Growing old and alone in Rappahannock County Nancy Studds is 79 and lives by herself in her Sperryville home. And that gives her pause.  “If you fall and you can’t get up,” she said, “you know nobody’s checking on you.” She zeroed in on a common fear among seniors...

Our Journalism Team

Tim Carrington

Tim Carrington

Tim Carrington has worked in journalism and economic development, writing for The Wall Street Journal for fifteen years from New York, London and Washington. He later joined the World Bank, where he  launched a training program in economics journalism for reporters and editors in Africa and the former Soviet Union. He also served as senior communications officer for the World Bank’s Africa Region. 

He is author of The Year They Sold Wall Street, published by Houghton Mifflin, and worked at McGraw Hill Publications before joining the Wall Street Journal.  His writing on development issues has appeared in  The Globalist, World Paper, Enterprise Africa, the 2003 book,  The Right To Tell: The Role of Mass Media in Economic Development

He is a regular writer for Foothills Forum, with his stories appearing in the Rappahannock News in other outlets in surrounding communities. His profiles and stories on the county’s political economy have earned numerous awards from the Virginia Press Association. 

Carrington is also a painter, whose work is regularly shown at the Middle Street Gallery in the Town of Washington, Rappahannock’s county seat. He grew up in Richmond, Va., and graduated from the University of Virginia. In 2006, he and his wife became part-time residents in Rappahannock County, which is currently their legal residence.

Reach Tim at [email protected]

Luke Christopher

Luke Christopher

Luke Christopher is a “Best of D.C.” photographer and two-time “Best in Show” winner of the Virginia Press Association’s photo essay award. He started his career as a writer at the University of Maryland’s Diamondback student newspaper. With a passion for telling visual stories via photo and video, he interned at National Geographic Television and worked as a video editor at Discovery Channel.

Luke’s photography clients have included The National Gallery of Art, The Washington Post, Washington Times, Washingtonian magazine and The Embassy of India. In his travels, he produced a documentary for the Cyprus Tourist Board. Since 2016, he has worked as a photographer, videographer and reporter for the Rappahannock News and Foothills Forum.

Covering local government meetings and events has connected him with the farmers, first-responders, local businesses, charities, schools, artists and all the other wonderful people who make Rappahannock County so special.

Reach Luke at [email protected] 

Ireland Hayes

Ireland Hayes

Ireland joined Foothills Forum as a full-time reporter in 2023 after graduating from the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication with a degree in journalism and minor in music. As a student, she gained valuable experience in reporter and editor positions at The Red & Black, an award-winning student newspaper, and contributed to Grady Newsource and the Athens Banner-Herald. She spent three years as an editorial assistant at Georgia Magazine, UGA’s quarterly alumni publication, and interned with The Bitter Southerner.

Growing up in a small town in Southeast Georgia, Ireland developed a deep appreciation for rural communities and the unique stories they have to tell. She completed undergraduate research on so-called “news deserts”, ghost papers and the ways rural communities in Georgia are being forced to adapt to a lack of local news. This research further sparked her interest in a career contributing to the preservation of local and rural news.

Reach Ireland at [email protected] 

Bob Hurley

Bob Hurley

Bob Hurley has been a member of the Foothills reporting team for many years. In addition to writing in-depth news articles, Bob regularly contributes “Doer’s Profiles” which feature stories about people who make important contributions to the Rappahannock community.

After graduating from college, Bob worked for several years at the ABC News bureau in Washington, D.C., and then as a communications director for the National Wildlife Federation. Later, he spent over a decade in the United States Senate as a senior staff member working on major environmental laws including the Clean Water Act.  Subsequently, he ran a government relations firm specializing in environment, energy and sustainability issues.

Bob and his wife, Heather Wicke, have had a home in Rappahannock since 2016. He enjoys being involved in a wide range of community activities including the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection, RAAC Theatre, Headwaters Starfish Mentoring Program, the Lions Club and Rapp at Home. He enjoys fishing, gardening, hiking, and biking.

Reach Bob at [email protected] 

Mary Ann Kuhn

Mary Ann Kuhn

Veteran journalist Mary Ann Kuhn, a former editor of the Rappahannock News, joined Foothills in 2023 part-time as an editor and reporter. She fills two critical needs:

– A frontline “go-to” editor when Foothills journalists file their stories. Previously, Foothills had relied on a small corps of volunteer editors operating ad hoc. Since joining the Foothills team, Mary Ann has served as the primary editor. All stories have continued to receive a “second read” by a Foothills volunteer editor before being released to the Rapp News or other outlets.

– In addition to editing, Mary Ann is an accomplished reporter/writer who has helped by tackling some of the many stories that Foothills has been unable to pursue because we simply don’t have enough journalists.

Over her career, Mary Ann has worked in both print and broadcast for some of the nation’s leading news organizations (The Washington Star, The Washington Post and CBS News, among them). She was editor of the Rappahannock News from 2003-2005 and, for many years, owned and operated the historic Middleton Inn in the Town of Washington, Rappahannock’s county seat. She has a deep knowledge of the community. 

Separate from her position with Foothills Forum, Mary Ann has been hired by the Rappahannock News as an editor. Her responsibilities include editing stories, coordinating graphics and photography, reporting and playing a key role in putting the entire paper together.

Reach Mary Ann at [email protected]

Paul McGeough

Paul McGeough

Born in Ireland and raised in Australia, Paul McGeough is a former managing editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. As the Herald’s Chief Foreign Correspondent, he spent decades reporting from and writing books on the Middle East and Central Asia – Iraq and Afghanistan in particular. During his career he won eight Walkley Awards, Australia’s Pulitzer Prize equivalent; was twice named Australian Journalist of the year; and his book “Kill Khalid,” the story of Hamas, was named Book of the Year in Australia. Happily retired in Rappahannock County, McGeough builds and gardens – when he’s not engaged in Foothill Forum’s journalistic pursuits.

Reach Paul at [email protected]

Randy Reiland

Randy Reiland

Randy Rieland was a newspaper reporter and magazine editor for more than 20 years, starting with stints at the Pittsburgh Press and Baltimore Sun, and moving on to become editor of Pittsburgh Magazine and a senior editor at Washingtonian magazine.

He made the switch to digital media in 1995 as part of the team that launched Discovery.com, the website for the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and other Discovery Communications Networks. He ultimately was promoted to senior vice president of Discovery Channel Digital Media.

After his return to print journalism, Randy has written for Smithsonian and Johns Hopkins Magazine. He is a longtime, regular contributor to Foothills Forum. His stories, appearing in the Rappahannock News, have won numerous Virginia Press Association awards for excellence. 

When he’s not reporting, Randy is a volunteer with the National Park Service at Arlington House, above Arlington National Cemetery. He and his wife, Carol Ryder, have owned a house off Tiger Valley Road since 2005.

Reach Randy at [email protected]

Laura Stanton

Laura Stanton

Laura Stanton is an award-winning artist who specializes in infographics, having spent more than two decades on the staffs of The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Dallas Morning News. 

She taught information graphics at the University of Missouri Journalism School for a decade. She has run LaVidaCo Communications since 2012, creating illustrations, presentations and animations for a wide range of clients, including the Rappahannock News and Foothills Forum.

She loves working with other journalists to bring a visual storytelling component to their high-quality, deeply reported stories.

Our Partners

The work of Foothills Forum journalists is published, free of charge, in print and online by legacy newspaper The Rappahannock News. Some of our more in-depth, enterprise work that is of interest to surrounding counties also appears for free, with our permission, in neighboring news publications.
Dennis Brack

Dennis Brack

Rappahannock News Publisher

Dennis Brack is publisher of the Rappahannock News and co-managing partner of Rappahannock Media, which also publishes community newspapers/sites in Prince William, Culpeper and Fauquier counties, as well as local magazines, specialty publications and InsideNoVa.com, Northern Virginia’s largest news digital site. Brack became publisher of the Rappahannock News in 2013 after leaving The Washington Post Company, where he worked in a variety of positions in the Post’s newsroom, including leading the design and graphics teams, and as creative director of Foreign Policy magazine.

Earlier in his career, Dennis worked for news publisher Knight Ridder, and as an independent consultant he helped lead newspaper redesign projects in Spain and Bolivia. Dennis grew up in Fairfax and is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Reach Dennis at [email protected]

Julia Shanahan

Julia Shanahan

Rappahannock News Editor & Reporter

Julia Shanahan began working at the Rappahannock News and Foothills Forum in 2021 as a corps member with Report for America, assigned to cover the growing needs of public services in the county. She worked as a corps member for three years, winning two individual awards for feature and breaking news stories and served as a member of the advisory committee.

Julia has been working as editor of the Rappahannock News since spring 2023 covering a wide span of issues, including rural broadband access, zoning and other happenings in local government. She graduated from the University of Iowa in 2021 with bachelor’s degrees in journalism and political science, and she served as politics editor of The Daily Iowan, the independent student newspaper. She also interned with the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents’ Association, where she covered state government in Harrisonburg, Pa.

Reach Julia at [email protected]

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From Our Archives

Report card: Achievements, weaknesses identified in RCPS academics

Rappahannock County Public Schools showed big academic advancements in the 2023-24 school year, especially in English, raising their state accreditation levels overall.  But there still seems to be room for improvement.  While English scores rose at both the...

Supervisors honor Rappahannock’s own blue legend John Jackson

The Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors has proclaimed Sept. 28, 2024, John Jackson Day in honor of the late blues musician who was born in the county in 1924. The John Jackson Blues Festival is scheduled for the same date at Eldon Farms in Woodville, and the...

Supervisors back Sperryville sewer repairs

No more ‘kicking the can down the road’ The Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 last Wednesday to back a $1.4 million loan the Rappahannock County Water and Sewer Authority (RCWSA) intends to use to replace outdated equipment at the Sperryville...

Rappahannock supervisors back sewer authority loan, OK boundary change, recognize heroes, reconsider public comment cap

BOS 9-24 meetingThe Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors held its September meeting Wednesday. It included a wide ranging agenda, and the evening session didn't wrap up until around 11 p.m. • See full video of the meeting at the end of the story. From approving a...

Ready, set, goal! Rappahannock soccer kicks off

Rappahannock County Soccer Association’s (RCSA) fall season kicked off last week, holding its first practices and games. Through the work of many volunteers, with support from the Rappahannock County Lions Club and other donors, and Rappahannock County Public Schools,...

Supervisors approve new lifesaving equipment

The Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors has approved $278,139 of funding for the purchase of six new Lifepak 35 monitors, a newer model of lifesaving devices used by all of the fire and rescue companies in the county. The total cost of the new equipment is more...

Lifesavers recognized for efforts at Settle’s grocery

Huntly resident Ben Hahn and first responders were recognized at last Wednesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting for their lifesaving efforts.  Hahn assisted Jerry Brown, 71, of Amissville, who collapsed Aug. 6 at Settle’s Grocery & Garage in Flint Hill, performing...

Democratic candidates campaign in Rappahannock

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. and Virginia State Sen. Suhas Subramanyam visited Rappahannock County Sunday for a joint meet and greet and roundtable discussion on how to address challenges the county faces. Kaine and Subramanyam are both on the campaign trail, with Kaine up...

Free speech or ‘managed speech’ at Rappahannock County government meetings?

BOS redrafts ordinance after public comments A proposed amendment to the Rappahannock County Code putting time limits on public comment went back for a redraft after residents spoke heatedly against it at last Wednesday’s Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting.  The code...

New mental health resources come to RCPS

Schools fully accredited, lobbyist working in Richmond The Rural Education Achievement and Community Health (REACH) Initiative was introduced at Tuesday night’s School Board meeting, a program in Rappahannock County Public Schools (RCPS) focused on creating a...