The Northern Piedmont Community Foundation on Tuesday announced it awarded $329,500 to nonprofits serving the region, three of which are based in Rappahannock County, through the Community Assistance Grant cycle. Funded by the PATH Foundation and the Mary Virginia...
Local Services
An African-American paper endures in Southwest
local news logo Claudia A. Whitworth was 18 in 1945 when she began working with her father on the Roanoke Tribune, the African-American weekly he founded shortly before World War II. In its columns, the Rev. F.E. Alexander – Baptist minister, journalist and printer –...
A small-town success story
local news logo If you go out to the coffee shop in Monterey, Va., with The Recorder publisherAnne Adams, don’t expect to eat quickly. “It’s very difficult to get through lunch,” said Betsy Edwards, executive director of the Virginia Press Association. “Every single...
Mixing small town politics and journalism
When the Christmas parade float bearing grand marshal Billy Coleburn, longtime mayor of Blackstone, Va., rolled through the small Southside town, he hopped down and began snapping photos of the colorful marching bands, cheerleaders, elves, beaming bystanders and a...
No reporters on staff
Lifelong newspaperman Carlos Santos was once part of a three-person Richmond Times-Dispatch bureau in Charlottesville, one of several outposts across the Commonwealth for Virginia’s second-largest daily. Laid off in 2009 along with dozens of other reporters as the...
A county left without a newspaper
Greg Glassner worked at six newspapers over a 42-year career: afternoon dailies in Syracuse, N.Y., and Norfolk, and four weeklies in Virginia, only one of which is still publishing, the Madison County Eagle. He edited the Herald-Progress in Ashland for eight years and...
Rappahannock Supervisors warily dig into budget choices and tradeoffs
With state budget in limbo, higher real estate, new cigarette taxes possible County and state budget plans are unfolding on dual tracks: the Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors this week began digging into a proposed set of tax increases they hope to avoid, while...
Background | Public schools budget: The LCI hurdle
One of the biggest budget hurdles that Rappahannock County Public Schools (RCPS) faces is its Local Composite Index (LCI). That’s the complex formula used by Virginia to determine how much funding each county receives from the state to pay for public education. Each...
Tax hikes proposed to fill Rappahannock school shortfall
State spending standoff forces tough local choices, $1 million gap The county budget – normally long on detail and short on drama – has been yanked into a showdown over tax increases that promises a spring of debate and painful choices. Rappahannock’s proposed tax...
Rappahannock schools seek big boost in county’s financial support
Rappahannock County Public Schools (RCPS) on Tuesday adopted a 2024 FY budget that would increase the county’s financial support by almost $550,000. It would be the largest year-to-year bump in county funding in recent memory. The proposed $14.6 million budget,...
Rappahannock schools suffer $1 million setback as lobbying efforts for more state funds fails
Rappahannock County Public Schools (RCPS) suffered a setback last week in its effort to boost the financial support it receives from the state. The Virginia Senate’s Finance and Appropriations Committee voted to shelve a bill that would have removed a cap that has...
Youngkin’s housing ideas stir worries of lost local control over Virginia land
Virginia needs more houses — tens of thousands of them, including as many as 300,000 affordable rental units. Zoning restraints, land-use policies and environmental regulations have been getting in the way. This is the core message in Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s initiative,...
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