From farm to store: Janelle Huffman’s dream unfolds

From farm to store: Janelle Huffman’s dream unfolds

For years Janelle Huffman dreamed of having a farm store of her own. Now, in Amissville, she has one — stocked with beef tallow balms and scrubs, homemade soaps, sourdough breads and baked goods, as well as beef, pork and lamb raised on the family farm. The Hoof ‘n’...

Back-porch blues comes to Castleton

Back-porch blues comes to Castleton

John Jackson festival returns Sept. 26 It’s the music of back porches. So it makes perfect sense that a musician, who bills himself as the “Appalachian Soul Man,” should be a headliner at the John Jackson Piedmont Blues Festival on Saturday, Sept. 26 at Castleton...

Doers

Faces Behind the News

Doer’s Profile: Drew Mitchell

Doer’s Profile: Drew Mitchell

  Background: President of Fathom Creative, a Washington, D.C.-based design and communications firm; purchased Avon Hall in Little Washington in 2016 and resides in a cottage on the property; Virginia resident since 2018; serves on the town’s Architectural Review...

The Faces Behind the News

The Faces Behind the News

Foothills Forum has given me a unique window into the broader community that makes The Rappahannock News such a special and successful publication. Through my interest in photography, I’ve had the opportunity to take portraits of many of the individuals who contribute...

Latest Stories

From farm to store: Janelle Huffman’s dream unfolds

For years Janelle Huffman dreamed of having a farm store of her own. Now, in Amissville, she has one — stocked with beef tallow balms and scrubs, homemade soaps, sourdough breads and baked goods, as well as beef, pork and lamb raised on the family farm. The Hoof ‘n’...

Back-porch blues comes to Castleton

John Jackson festival returns Sept. 26 It’s the music of back porches. So it makes perfect sense that a musician, who bills himself as the “Appalachian Soul Man,” should be a headliner at the John Jackson Piedmont Blues Festival on Saturday, Sept. 26 at Castleton...

Election season moves into full swing

Officials detail layers of checks ahead of early voting As election disputes and court challenges play out around the country ahead of the November midterms, Rappahannock County election officials emphasize the safeguards built into its process — before a single vote...

Town of Washington floats idea of sewer rate hike

Mayor says system operating ‘far into red’ Mayor Joe Whited said Monday that Town of Washington residents may see higher sewer bills in the coming months, citing inflation and years of the town’s water and sewer system operating in the red and relying on outside...

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 Rieland

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

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

Doer’s Profile: Jenn Mintz

Background: Co-founder, In True Nature, a wellness center located on Slate Mills Road in Boston; practitioner of Ayurvedic wellness, which seeks to connect individuals with their inner self and the rhythms of the natural world; manages a community fund to support...

Painting the human spirit: Kathy Stewart’s path from cancer care to canvas

Kathy Waller Stewart, currently the featured artist at the Middle Street Gallery, followed a road to art that ran through years of medical training, parenthood, a career as an oncologist, then, after early retirement, a rigorous four-year immersion at the Studio...

Hearthstone School students mark Winter Solstice with lantern walk in Washington

Carrying glowing lanterns through the dusk, more than a dozen Hearthstone School students marked the Winter Solstice with their annual lantern walk through the Town of Washington on Dec. 18, led by teacher Kitty Keyser. “Special thanks to The Inn at Little Washington,...

Larry Grove leaves Rappahannock County schools better as he retires from school board

‘It’s sad to leave’ after decades of devotion to education For Larry Grove, service on the Rappahannock County School Board — where as vice chair he was seen as an unwavering voice of reason — was always about the students. Now, after nearly 13 years representing the...

Judge dismisses charge in Flint Hill malicious wounding case — not sufficient evidence to proceed

A Rappahannock County District Court judge decided there was not enough “probable cause" to send a malicious wounding charge against Kenneth Allison to a grand jury after hearing testimony about a stabbing in Flint Hill in October. “I don’t think there’s enough...

Rappahannock School Board honors Larry Grove for years of service

The Rappahannock County School Board began its last meeting of the year Tuesday recognizing longtime educator Larry Grove, who is retiring as vice chair and Stonewall-Hawthorne representative. Chair Wes Mills read a resolution calling out Grove’s “nearly 13 years of...

Vice Mayor Fred Catlin appointed to ARB, vacant spot opens on Town Council

In a 3-2 vote, the Washington Town Council appointed Vice Mayor Fred Catlin to the vacant Architectural Review Board (ARB) seat at its Monday meeting. Catlin announced his resignation from the council following the vote.  The council will now need to fill its vacant...

New lawyer in, venue change out for Chester Brown

Chester Brown’s wish for a new attorney was granted in Rappahannock County Circuit Court Monday, but a change of venue request was not accepted for his trial on charges of murdering Doris Critzer in her Washington home in August 2023. Brown’s attorney Ryan Rakness...

From ‘family’ to fallout: What drove half the educators to leave Rappahannock high school

Teachers: Culture changed, no longer “family’ atmosphere School officials: Routine turnover, retirements, better pay elsewhere If the hallways of Rappahannock County High School could talk, they’d tell of an exodus of almost half of the teachers and aides by the...

‘The privilege of my life’: Outgoing Supervisor Van Carney reflects on serving county

After representing the Stonewall-Hawthorne District for one four-year term, Woodville resident Van Carney will step down from the Rappahannock Board of Supervisors (BOS) at the end of the year.  Carney, 45, now a third-year law student at George Mason University’s...