Archive for March, 2012

VINTON–Vinton is the well-known host for several annual events: the Dogwood Festival, the Christmas Parade, the New Year’s Eve Gala, the Halloween Trick or Treating with downtown merchants, Mingle on the Market, the Fall Festival, and the Vinton Relay for Life. The Vinton Area Chamber of Commerce has now cemented a permanent place on... »

VINTON–Lions Club International is widely recognized for its support of sight programs and services, including vision screenings, eye banks and eyeglass recycling. The Vinton Host Lions Club embraces that mission and is making use of new technology to screen close to 300 preschoolers in the area for eye problems. Club president, Dennis Dickens is... »

VINTON–Joyce Castelli fromVinton, was one of over 130 local members of AARP who attended last week’s “You’ve Earned a Say” Town Hall Meeting at the South County Library, which was one of several across the state during the week of March 19-23. The purpose of the meetings was to give Virginians a platform to... »

IRONTO – Starting Monday, April 2, the parking lot of the Ironto rest area on I-81 south of Salem will be closed to cars between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. while the parking lot is milled and paved. Virginia Department of Transportation officials said truck parking at the rest area will still be available.... »

It was like putting our children on the school bus for the first day of school. Only instead of a bus, the vehicle was a box truck, and the kids were our puppies, Skippy and Catawba. They were on the “Hip-to-Snip Trip” to the Mountain View Humane Clinic in Christiansburg to get neutered. Or,... »

The Board of Supervisors budget committee met again Wednesday morning where it digested comments from the previous night’s public meeting at Lord Botetourt High School. By the end of the 3-1/2 hour committee meeting, the supervisors had asked the county administration to provide several budget scenarios that included real estate and personal property tax... »

BOTETOURT – If the Board of Supervisors did not know that citizens love their schools, their libraries, and the parks and recreation programs, they know it now. More than 500 people of all ages turned out at the public input meeting Tuesday night, and the vast majority wanted to save Botetourt County. Students pleaded... »

SALEM – For a man who makes his living by talking, Tom Bowers was close to being speechless. Bowers was caught off guard when he was named Citizen of the Year by the Salem-Roanoke County Chamber of Commerce at the organization’s annual meeting March 22. “I’m just floored,” said Bowers, who is Salem Commonwealth’s... »

Richard Lee Lawrence died suddenly on March 19, 2012, as a result of an automobile accident. 
He lived a full life and leaves behind not only his family but many friends throughout the mountains of 
Southwest Virginia, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, Africa and the far reaches of the world. He was a member of St.... »

NEW CASTLE  – Locust Mountain Grill owners Carolyn and Joseph Harless and daughters Josie and Hannah, along with about 150 patrons, recently celebrated the grill’s second anniversary with lots of music, food, door prizes and fun. Not only that, the celebration was held on St. Patrick’s Day, which most people, Irish or not, love... »