
Vice president Vance makes surprise visit to Little Washington
‘Everybody deserves a day off … that was my hope for him’ When innkeeper Amanda Huff answered the phone at the Foster Harris House bed and breakfast last Friday morning to take a lodging reservation for the next night, she never could have imagined to whom she would...
From counterculture to Rappahannock’s matriarchs: Meet some of the 70s free spirits who still call county home
‘We never identified ourselves as hippies’ Many of the women who moved here during what some Rappahannock locals called the “hippie invasion” in the 1970s — a movement of peace, love and free-spirited lifestyles — stayed on. Over the decade, communes like “Spyder...
Kid Pan Alley turns 25: ‘Everyone has a song in them’
Songwriter celebrates 25 years of making music with kids For a quarter century, Paul Reisler and his collaborators at Kid Pan Alley have inspired nearly 3,000 songs, written and performed by about 80,000 school kids across the United States. Reisler — songwriter,...
Doers
Pathfinders
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...
Howard Lambert’s mission: to honor Black Civil War soldiers
Rappahannock County’s calming beauty and rolling hills hold stories from the Civil War era waiting to be told. Howard Lambert, a Culpeper native and the first African American president of the Brandy Station Foundation, has worked tirelessly to bring these stories to...
VPA Award Winners
In Photos | Ride ’em cowboys at Culpeper Rodeo
Sometimes, it actually is your first rodeo — as a spectator, at least. And when you first see, and feel, a 2,000-pound bull thrash around just yards away, it’s enough to make...
‘God is watching over us’: Culpeper County residents tell of tornado damage
A category F1 tornado touched down in rural Culpeper County Sunday night, destroying most everything in its path. Families affected are still evaluating damage and trying to rebuild from the tragedy that befell their holiday weekend. Eggbornsville Road “We are...
‘Everybody thinks their generation had it tough. This generation has a different challenge.’
What schools and parents can do Time was when teen dread and dark moods were largely viewed as unfortunate features of adolescence, conditions driven by insecurities and hormonal changes that in time would pass. It’s an attitude that can linger, particularly among...
Gen Stressed: Students’ anxiety, depression mount
This is the first part of a series on the mental health struggles of today’s generation of teenagers, the urgent need for more support in schools and how families can get help. Schools scramble to keep up The plan, Erica Jennejahn recalls, was to get ahead of things,...
Grassland birds in serious decline
Can new farming practices increase numbers? The call of the northern bobwhite, the trill of the eastern meadowlark, the sweet high notes of the grasshopper sparrow — imagine a walk down a quiet country lane without enjoying the beautiful songs of these and other...
Home sweet home: A reach for many in Rappahannock, Fauquier and Culpeper
With contributed reports from Ireland Hayes, Hunter Savery and Allison Brophy Champion Housing insecurity triggers stress, risk, despair People who are financially secure and people who are financially strained both consider housing central to their well-being. But...
Preserving a breed: Viewtown farm is sanctuary for rare Tarpan horses
One morning after a storm, Debbie Capasso woke up to three camels standing in her yard. Little did she know, a chance encounter nine years ago with an exotic animal would turn into a lifelong commitment to another. When the camels’ owner came to claim them and return...
Who murdered Doris Critzer?
Five months later, what we know — and don’t know — about a murder in Washington, Virginia Five months have passed since the body of Doris Ann Critzer was found in a grisly scene on the kitchen floor of her home, located within easy walking distance to the historic...
Our Journalism Team

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 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 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 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
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
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 Rieland
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 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.
Watch our video and see what Foothills Forum is all about!
Our Partners

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
Rappahannock News Editor & Reporter
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]