Criminal cases ranging from attempted murder to perjury will now go to trial following a July 23 grand jury session in Bland.
Meeting behind closed doors, the jurors listened to allegations before returning indictments against the accused.
It will now be up to a judge or jury to decide if the defendants are guilty or not guilty.

It’s lights out on the old convoluted attendance policy at Bland County’s high schools.

In a quick legal exchange between lawyers and the judge last week, former Damascus police Chief Tony Richardson’s July 25 hearing was continued to Oct. 24 at 9 a.m.

The new landscaping at the Abingdon Senior Center is for more than just aesthetics. It’s practical.
The horseshoe of small trees and shrubbery forms a Rain Garden, landscaping that will prevent the 1,000 square-foot puddle from accumulating on the lawn as in years past.

Try logging onto Damascus’ town Web site or a Creeper Trail bike rental Web site at a public library. You might not be able to. The reason – spam and pornography.
Those are just some of the glitches Washington County library staff has been grappling with this past month as they implement a new Internet filtering system on all library computers. 

Emory & Henry College inked a deal Tuesday with the University of Appalachia College of Pharmaceuticals that will give its students preferential admission to the university’s Doctor of Pharmacy program. 

Town and county officials and residents discussed designs for a new Damascus library at a planning meeting last week.
Suggestions for the new facility included building two or three separate rooms and one large one for youth and adult literacy program, according to Town Council and Library Board member Jim Cartwright. 

The people in the Fall’s Plaza lobby starred at pictures on the walls, sipping wine and chatting.
Some had their fingers crossed. Those weren’t the photographers hoping their work would bring in another paycheck. Those were social workers, hoping the children in the pictures would be adopted by one of the families perusing the gallery.
This was the Heart Gallery. 

Business is blooming for Beka McCune.
At the end of each week, McCune harvests dozens of her homegrown field flowers to sell to the early morning customers at the Abingdon Farmers Market on Saturdays. The avid gardener is not only turning a lifelong interest into a source of income, she also enjoys sharing her love for the outdoors with people in the community.

There’s a home in Hillsville known as “The House of a Thousand Headaches.”
It’s a glass house made with lots of bottles. And some of that glass actually includes former wine containers – hence, the “headache” name. Located on private property, “The Bottle House” was once known as an informal tourist attraction.