by Julia Shanahan, Ireland Hayes | Dec 27, 2025 | Education, People, Sidebar
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,...
by Ireland Hayes | Dec 22, 2025 | Education, People, Sidebar, Top Story
‘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...
by Ireland Hayes | Dec 18, 2025 | Crime and Courts, Sidebar
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...
by Ireland Hayes | Dec 15, 2025 | Education, Sidebar
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...
by Ireland Hayes | Dec 13, 2025 | Local Government, Sidebar, Town
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...
by Ireland Hayes | Dec 12, 2025 | Crime and Courts, Sidebar
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...
by Randy Rieland | Dec 12, 2025 | Education, Sidebar, Top Story
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...
by Bob Hurley | Dec 9, 2025 | County, Local Government, Sidebar, Top Story
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...
by Ireland Hayes | Dec 6, 2025 | Crime and Courts, Sidebar
Attorney: No plans to close ‘lucrative’ business A former employee of Williams Tree Service LLC filed a complaint Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Virginia seeking to prevent the company from erasing a debt she says the company owes...
by Ireland Hayes | Dec 1, 2025 | Crime and Courts, Sidebar
‘We are really, seriously having a problem’ he tells judge Chester Brown had his day — and say — in Rappahannock County Circuit Court Thursday, airing frustrations about his lawyer and how the murder case against him is being handled. Brown, 65, a former Washington...