Building Committee, RIP • Flint Hill Fire back-and-forth • Hiking Old Rag: Get a ticket • Volunteers battle brush fires • Chester Brown sentenced. Murder unsolved. • Russian intrigue in Huntly! • Trump win, caravan parades • Washington’s ‘First Lady’ passes • High school principal departs • and much more…
January
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Jan. 3: Board of Supervisors votes 4 to 1 not to appoint any of its members to the Building Committee, essentially making it inoperative. The board also agrees to extend the terms of the county-appointed officers of the Flint Hill Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company while they revise the company’s bylaws.
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Former Jackson Supervisor Ron Frazier attends a Board of Supervisors meeting in January 2024 — the first meeting he’s attended as a citizen, rather than an elected official, in more than 20 years.
Jan. 15: The county gets its first real snow accumulation in two years as several inches fall.
Jan. 21: Woodville residents Rachel and Josh Savey purchase Sperryville Schoolhouse for $1.25 million.
Jan. 24: Sharon Pierce is unanimously elected chair of the county’s Board of Zoning Appeals.
February
Feb. 5: The Board of Supervisors disbands the Building Committee and assumes oversight of the courthouse restoration project.
Feb. 5: Former supervisor Chris Parrish is appointed to fill a vacancy of the Board of Zoning Appeals.
Feb. 19: Rapp Connect, a free ride service for residents 65 or older and those with disabilities, is launched.
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Rapp Connect debuts
Feb. 28: The county’s Board of Zoning Appeals upholds an appeal that blocks the subdivision of property on Woodward Road in Sperryville.
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County residents filled the courthouse on Feb. 28 when the Board of Zoning Apeeals upheld an appeal that ultimately blocks the possibility for a subdivision on Woodward Road.
March
March 1: National Park Service initiates policy requiring advance day-use tickets to hike Old Rag Mountain between March and November.
March 4: The Board of Supervisors votes to require that a property must be owned two years before it can be converted into a tourist home, such as an Airbnb.
March 13: The memberships of eight longtime members of the Flint Hill Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company are revoked by the company’s new directors. A week later they receive “No Trespassing” orders from the Sheriff’s Office, blocking their entrance to the Flint Hill station.
March 20: Volunteer firefighters battled an outbreak of seven different brush fires in the county after wind gusts downed electrical lines in multiple locations.
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Volunteers look for remaining embers. (Photo/Ireland Hayes for Foothills Forum)
March 21: County resident Chester Brown is found guilty on two firearm charges in Rappahannock County Circuit Court. This was in connection with a gun missing in the home of Doris Critzer, who was found murdered there in August 2023.
April
April 6: The 48th annual Old Dominion Hounds Point-to-Point races are held at Ben Venue Farm.
April 16: More than 2,000 Rappahannock Electric Cooperative customers lose power and the county’s public schools close when a squirrel damages equipment in a substation.
April 18: The Rappahannock County Garden Club celebrates its 75th anniversary.
April 20: Nearly 400 runners compete in the Fodderstack 10K Classic, from Flint Hill to the Town of Washington.
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Foderstack Finishes
April 27: The annual rubber duck race in the Thornton River highlights SperryFest 2024.
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A waterfall of rubber ducks kicks off the duck race. (Photo/Ireland Hayes for Foothills Forum)
April 27: The Marketplace Sperryville opens in the former River District Arts building.
May
May 6: By a 4-1 vote, the Board of Supervisors approves a $30 million budget that manages to avoid raising the county’s property tax rate.
May 14: A total of $1,146,740 is raised for local nonprofits through the Give Local Piedmont program. Donations came from 1,212 donors in the region.
May 15: An application to open an “eco-retreat” in Sperryville is withdrawn after members of the county’s Planning Commission unanimously recommend denying a permit to the property owners. Plans called for a cluster of tent-like structures at the peak of Red Man Mountain.
May 28: Chester Brown sentenced to four years for gun violations.
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Chester Brown arrives for a January court hearing.
May 31: The Corner Deli Market in Amissville closes after only a little more than a year in business. It occupied the historic location of what was once Hackley’s Country Store, which opened in 1934.
May: The Belle Meade Montessori school in Sperryville closes after 17 years.
June
June 3: The Board of Supervisors approves applications for three new tourist homes a month before more restrictive rules go into effect.
June 11: The Rappahannock County School Board approves a 2024-25 budget totaling over $15 million. The county accounts for $9.9 million, or 66% of the total.
June 14: Rappahannock High School Principal Carlos Seward announces he is leaving to take a similar position in Fairfax County.
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Carlos Seward
June 29: Beverly Knight Sullivan, “First Lady” of the Town of Washington as wife of longtime mayor John Fox Sullivan, dies of Alzheimer’s disease.
July
July 9: Rappahannock School Board receives results of 2023 survey showing that a quarter of the school district’s middle and high school students have considered suicide.
July 12: The Rappahannock Food Pantry opens at its new location in the Rush River Commons development.
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Rappahannock Food Pantry President Penny Kardis, Co- Coordinator of the Capital Campaign John Fox Sullivan, Rush River Commons Founder Chuck Akre and Advisor to Rush River Commons Betsy Dietel jointly cut the ribbon for the new location of the pantry last Friday at Rush River Commons in Washington, Va.
July 18: Businesses of Rappahannock gets a new leader as Laurie Smith succeeds Theresa Wood, who steps down after seven years in the role.
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Laurie Smith, right, speaks to attendees of a Businesses of Rappahannock event at The Sperryville Marketplace last Wednesday. Smith takes over from the organization’s longtime president, Theresa Wood, center.
July 21: Ours Noir restaurant in the Town of Washington closes after a year in business.
July 29: School Board announces hiring of Mary Jane Boynton as new high school principal.
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Rappahannock County Public Schools (RCPS) Superintendent Shannon Grimley, right, introduces new high school Principal Dr. Mary Jane Boynton at the 2 p.m. session of the Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors regular meeting, Aug. 5, 2024.
August
Aug. 5: The Board of Supervisors unanimously approves a plan to set up speeding cameras in the school zone on Route 211.
Aug. 5: The Board of Supervisors votes to hire the Richmond architectural and engineering firm of Glavé & Holmes to restore or replace the county courthouse.
Aug. 6: A three-judge panel of the Virginia Court of Appeals rules that the Board of Supervisors did not have the legal authority to remove the officers of the Flint Hill Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company in January 2023.
Aug. 13: Federal agents raid the Huntly property owned by Russian policy analyst Dimitri Simes and confiscate multiple boxes of material.
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Crime scene tape on the ground at the gate of the Huntly estate where FBI agents have been on scene since Tuesday.
September
Sept. 11: The Board of Supervisors approves $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.
Sept. 24: Sumac, the food truck on the grounds of Pen Druid Brewing in Sperryville, is named one of the top 50 restaurants in the country by The New York Times.
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The Sumac food truck in Sperryville, Va.
Sept. 26-27: Two days of heavy rain and strong wind gusts bring down trees and flood roads in the county. As much as five inches of rain falls in some locations.
October
Oct. 1: The average monthly bill for customers of Rappahannock Electric Cooperative increases by $6.52, or about 4%.
Oct. 4: An exhibition featuring Haitian art from the collection of Little Washington residents Beverly and John Fox Sullivan opens at the National Gallery of Art, the first permanent Haitian art display in the gallery’s history.
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John Sullivan with Kanitra Fletcher, associate curator of African American and Afro-Diasporic Art. “The Fight” by Jasmin Joseph is hanging behind them.
Oct. 5: First Annual Rappahannock County Pickleball Tournament is held at the Rappahannock County Park.
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Pickleball players join in a county-sponsored pickleball tournament last Saturday, the first of its kind in Rappahannock.
Oct. 7: Board of Supervisors, by a 3-1 vote, approves new employment agreement with County Administrator Garrey Curry, that raises his salary from $172,495 to $175,000 and removes Curry’s request for COBRA health care funding as part of a severance package. The supervisors also, by a 4-0 vote, agree to enter into an agreement with Rapp at Home to assist the county in funding and deploying automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in public locations around the county.
Oct. 26: A “Trump Caravan” of more than 30 cars, organized by the Rappahannock Republican Committee, drives through the county.
Oct. 28: Historic Laurel Mills Grocery Store reopens.
November
Nov. 5: More than 5,000 of the county’s 6,380 registered voters – about 80% – cast ballots in the presidential election. Donald Trump receives 58% of the Rappahannock vote.
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Party volunteer Demaris Miller with first-time voters Paige Molyneaux and Taryn Williams at the Republican information area at the Chester Gap polling station. “I’ve noticed a lot of young people out to vote for the first time, which is encouraging,” said Miller.
Nov. 12: TheRappahannock County School Board announces a community fundraising effort to extend the contract with lobbyist Elizabeth Parker, who has been representing the school district in its effort to get more financial aid from the state legislature.
December
Dec. 2: The Board of Supervisors unanimously approves the creation of an Agricultural and Forestal District (AFD) in Amissville. It’s the first new AFD, which protects agricultural and forested land in the county, since 1981.
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Amissville resident Page Glennie addresses the Board of Supervisors Monday evening in regards to an application to create a new Agricultural and Forestal District.
Dec. 9: All Points Broadband CEO Jimmy Carr confirms that the regional broadband project providing fiber-to-home connections to residents of Rappahannock and seven other counties will be delayed a year.
Dec. 9: The Inn at Little Washington keeps its highest Michelin Guide rating of three stars, the only restaurant in the Washington, D.C. region with the highest Michelin rating.
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Proprietor-Chef Patrick O’Connell and team in the Inn’s kitchen.
Dec. 9: A bus service providing rides from Warrenton and Front Royal to Washington, D.C. is launched by transit operator OmniRide.
Dec. 10: School officials tell the Rappahannock County School Board that a cellphone violation form has been implemented online, allowing teachers to report a student for violating the high school’s no cellphone policy without a verbal confrontation or disruption.
Dec. 12: Rappahannock Association for Arts and Community’s (RAAC’s) holiday show, “The 12 Days of Christmas,” is canceled due an outbreak of COVID-19 among the cast and crew.
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