Washington County students are in for a change next school year.
At Monday’s School Board meeting, members voted unanimously to trade the current six-week grading period for a nine-week one.

The independence came to an end on Friday.
For more than a century, Johnston Memorial Hospital had operated as a nonprofit, independent health care provider, starting out as a 12-bed log cabin. The hospital settled on 18 acres near its current location in 1905. Not much changed in the intervening hundred years, even in December, when Chief Executive Officer Sean McMurray announced plans to move operations to 60 acres between Interstate 81’s Exits 19 and 22, next to the hospital’s recently constructed cancer center. The hospital spent around $2 million for the land there and planned to spend more than $100 million in construction. Plans called for a 120-bed facility, compared to the current 135 beds. However, McMurray said all 120 beds would be in private rooms. Then came Friday. The day public relations director Brook Lambert called “a monumental day in the history of Johnston Memorial Hospital.”

The independence came to an end on Friday.
For more than a century, Johnston Memorial Hospital had operated as a nonprofit, independent health care provider, starting out as a 12-bed log cabin. The hospital settled on 18 acres near its current location in 1905. Not much changed in the intervening hundred years, even in December, when Chief Executive Officer Sean McMurray announced plans to move operations to 60 acres between Interstate 81’s Exits 19 and 22, next to the hospital’s recently constructed cancer center. The hospital spent around $2 million for the land there and planned to spend more than $100 million in construction. Plans called for a 120-bed facility, compared to the current 135 beds. However, McMurray said all 120 beds would be in private rooms. Then came Friday. The day public relations director Brook Lambert called “a monumental day in the history of Johnston Memorial Hospital.”

It helped that Justin Allen wasn’t exactly new to Johnston Memorial Hospital.
He’d worked there, on another floor, as a nurse’s aide before graduating the Neff Center’s licensed practical nurse program last year. When a position on the fourth floor, where he works now, opened up, he was offered the job and started the day after graduation.

Walk into any drugstore today and the first person you’ll likely see is a pharmacy technician. Walk in tomorrow and the chance is even greater.
The National Pharmacy Technician Association predicts nearly 30 percent job growth for techs over the next decade. Nearly 40,000 jobs are open in the field every year, it says.
It’s Alisha Walker’s job to fill those positions, or at least turn out graduates prepared to fill them.

Walk into any drugstore today and the first person you’ll likely see is a pharmacy technician. Walk in tomorrow and the chance is even greater.
The National Pharmacy Technician Association predicts nearly 30 percent job growth for techs over the next decade. Nearly 40,000 jobs are open in the field every year, it says.
It’s Alisha Walker’s job to fill those positions, or at least turn out graduates prepared to fill them.

If you have a tract of forest on your property, it might be a good idea to go have a look at it. And make a habit of it, the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation advises.
Regular inspection of private forests is one of the ways the Virginia Department of Forestry said landowners can prevent timber theft. Thieves annually steal $2 million in trees in the 13-counties of Southwest Virginia that form VDF forester Ed Stoots’ service region.

Narrows Livestock Reports March 5

An April court date has been set for a juvenile court judge and former Wythe County prosecutor charged Saturday with driving under the influence.

People offered favorable comments about a proposed $2.1 million upgrade of the Exit 47 interchange at a hearing this week, a Virginia Department of Transportation planner said Thursday.